FETT'AD
by Tatooine92
Summary: A girl is raised by Jango Fett, eventually becoming a bounty hunter herself and falling in love with an ARC trainee. AU. I own nothing except Rogue. All other OCs belong to JaxSolo, used with permission.
1. Introductions

**Chapter One – Introductions**

The name's Rogue. _Ni Mando_—I'm Mandalorian. Often, that's all I have to mention to get folks' attention or to make 'em shut up. And if _that_ doesn't work, then I try something I call "bloodless persuasion": hefting my blaster up under their noses so they can see straight down the barrel into the tibanna gas chamber. I've never had to try out actually _bloody_ persuasion, since most folks that think they can make me angry and get away with it repent pretty fast once they're looking down that barrel and watching the gas swirl around. Or that might just be their reaction once they've seen the enormous repeating rifle slung across my back.

Maybe I need to back up a ways and explain. And by "a ways," I mean back to when I was six. Trust me, that's a long time, considering how long I've been practically on my own. Or even better, we can back up beyond that to my family history, and then maybe we can spend a while discussing my family's gene pool and DNA. Oh, right, like _that'd_ be an enjoyable way to spend an evening when the firing range is right outside the front door. But I'll at least go back a little bit . . . maybe to where I come from.

My mother was Mandalorian, but she fell in love with my father when he was a smuggler along the Corellian Run. He stopped over on _Manda'yaim_—that's the planet Mandalore to those of you speaking Basic—for a while (I think he was evading some scoundrels who were out for his hide), met Mom, and they hit it off from the get-go. I was born a couple years later, when they moved to Coruscant, but neither of their families would have anything to do with me, really. I was a half-breed to Dad's family, who've never liked _Mando'ade_ to begin with, and a half-breed to Mom's, who weren't keen on half-blooded Mando children. As far as they were concerned, I was a disgrace to the Mandalorian way of life, so Mom was practically an exile from her people, and the Mando clans were off-limits to me. So, I grew up on Coruscant in a rather nice penthouse Dad had bought with whatever credits he made doing his smuggling. We had it going pretty well, actually. I had new clothes whenever I wanted them, I went to the best school on the planet, and our penthouse wasn't just _any_ penthouse—it was like a palace. So yeah, I was one of those stuck-up rich kids that gets anything and everything she wants. Except the major difference was I was _not_ stuck-up.

Our problems began the year I turned six. Dad took to drinking—and gambling—and chewing spice—and seeing other women besides my mother. I'm not even sure what got him started on all that stuff, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with one of his smuggling runs going bust. But not too long after he got started on it, he and Mom got a divorce. He got all the money we had, leaving Mom and me with almost only the clothes on our backs and a penthouse we couldn't afford. That was when Mom decided to buy a ship. I know, I know. It sounds insane. But just give me a minute and let me explain, okay? Anyway, she sold the penthouse, sold almost all of our things (most of my toys included, except for one doll she'd made me), and bought a small, used freighter that'd seen better days. She spent the rest of the money we had on fuel and repairs, getting it ready as if for a big trip.

One morning, she woke me up early and told me to get dressed and pack my things. I didn't have enough to pack—just what would fit in a knapsack. But I did as I was told, and she told me that we were going on a trip. She said we were going to Mandalore and that I would be staying with a cousin of hers while she went on to look for work. She promised me all the way out there that she'd come back as soon as she'd made enough money for us to go off and live happily ever after. Neat, huh? Okay, so, at five in the morning, I wasn't exactly paying attention to all those little details, so it _seemed_ neat. It wasn't until we were halfway to Mandalore that my brain woke up and I realized that _Mom's_ cousin translated to "Mandalorian relative." Mm-hmm. Rude awakening, eh?

"Mom!" I complained. "I can't speak Mando'a! How am I supposed to communicate?!"

"You can speak a little, darling," she sighed. "But don't worry—he speaks Basic as well as you do."

That was the best reassurance she could give me?! I was _six_, for crying out loud! I lisped through my front teeth! The word "Basic" came out as "Baythick" nine times out of ten! So I stormed off to the cargo hold to sulk and worry about this imaginary language barrier until we landed on Mandalore. I expected huge cities with massive technology, but all I saw was one little house with one tall man standing out in front of it with his arms crossed. I scurried up to the cockpit and peered out the window, noticing how excited Mom seemed.

"Oh, there's cousin Jango!" she cried, and out she went, leaving me to shoulder my pack and follow.

I eventually did, but I was hesitant because my mom was going to go off and leave me on a strange world with a strange man for a while. Slowly, I sidled up to Mom, who was conversing with this Jango fellow in rather rapid Mando'a phrases. I caught only fragments of it; mostly my name, but there were a few simple words I figured out. The whole time Mom was introducing me, Jango kept staring at me like I had two heads and a horn growing out of each of them or something. I just smiled a tiny little smile in hopes he'd think I was an adorable little girl. He didn't, or at least I didn't think he did, because his stern expression never changed. Joy. Yeah, yeah, sarcasm. I speak it as fluently as I do Mando'a, now that I've been around them both for a few years.

After a minute, Mom knelt down to me and clasped her hands around my shoulders, smiling at me. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Jango had walked to his house and had stopped just outside the door. Turning back to Mom, I gave her the biggest, bravest smile I could. She patted my hair.

"Be good, _cyar'ika_," she said. I knew that word. It meant "sweetheart"; she called me that often. "Do as Jango tells you and keep your room neat. You wait right here, and I'll come back when I've got enough money for us to have a big house on Naboo, okay?"

I nodded, and then she hugged me. She hugged me so hard I thought she'd crack a rib, but somehow, she managed not too. She gave me another smile and a kiss on the forehead before heading back to our little ship. I watched her go, waving frantically as she disappeared into the clear blue sky. All right, so are you ready for the shocker? That was the last time I ever saw my mother.


	2. First Night

**Chapter Two – First Night**

Okay, so, if you've recovered from the reeling surprise of that last sentence, we can move on with the story.

Anyway, after Mom left, I turned around and dragged my knapsack up to the house, where Jango was waiting for me. He didn't say anything; he just opened the door and let me in. As soon as I walked in, a feeling of cold washed over me as I looked around. The place looked so much more like a military base than a home that I wondered if he'd taken a wrong turn. On nearly every wall was a rack with a fancy rifle on it, and over the fireplace was a placard with a long string of Mando'a written on it: _Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur._ I looked up at Jango, confusion all over my six-year-old face, and he translated for me.

"Today is a good day for someone else to die."

I shivered, and those words immediately became etched in my mind. What made it worse was the sterility of the white walls and the huge rifle hanging right underneath that placard. That scared me something fierce, I'll tell you what. I stared at the placard for a little longer before Jango led me across the room to a half-staircase. We walked up the six steps, turned right, and hit the first door there. He motioned to it, so in I went.

"This is your room," he said in that accented voice of his. "Get yourself unpacked; supper'll be ready in a few."

I nodded as he turned around and left, and I was suddenly very alone and very aware of it. My room was just as sparsely decorated as the rest of the house. So, being six years old, alone, and scared, I threw myself onto my bed and began to cry. I wanted my mother to come get me and take me with her. I wanted my father to give up all his bad habits and remarry my mother. I wanted us all to move back to that penthouse so we could be happy again. But no . . . I was all alone on a strange planet in a strange house, lying on a strange bed, and being guarded by a strange man who was supposed to be a relative. I was so miserable, so upset, that I ended up crying myself to sleep.

I awoke about an hour later to someone nudging my shoulder. Rolling over, I found Jango standing over me, that permanent stern expression on his face. I gave a start, and he actually seemed to soften a bit.

"You missed supper," was all he said.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"Your plate's on the table if you're hungry."

Come to think of it . . . I was. I was really hungry. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and at that point, I didn't even care if whether or not he could cook. So I pushed myself off my bed and wandered downstairs to the table while Jango headed into the living room for a seat in the one chair in front of the fireplace and a quick smoke. I was so hungry I didn't even take a look at my dinner as I began eating, but then something triggered the gag reflex. I just barely got the first few bites down before I glanced down at my plate and realized . . . it was alive. Somehow he'd gotten the idea that six-year-olds enjoy eating wriggling _worms_ for dinner! I quickly pushed my plate back, eyeing it oddly as I found myself growing somewhat nauseous. Gratefully, I took a gulp from the glass of blue milk beside my plate. As I wiped the blue mustache off my upper lip, I looked into the living room.

"Uh . . ." I began. Jango turned and arched an eyebrow at me. "I'm done."

He got up and ambled into the kitchen, and he glanced at the plate before glaring at me. I was sitting there, still very nervous and apprehensive of him. I mean, c'mon! He was this big dude—at least from where I was sitting—with a house full of enormous rifles. Like I was gonna be put at ease as long as he was standing there with that cocked eyebrow and rough glare! I shrank back slightly as he picked up my plate and studied it some more. Then he studied me, and I remember feeling like an animal at the stockyards. Y'know—one of those poor beasts who's about to get slaughtered for meat.

"You didn't eat enough to keep a _rat_ alive," he said.

"Well, maybe if that stuff had been _dead_ before I ate it, I would've," I replied, my voice trembling. I was pretty scared to be talking back to him like that!

He stared at me for a few long seconds.

"Your mother didn't mention you'd be this ungrateful."

That did it. Scared, lonely, and still quite hungry, I began to cry. They weren't the tears that a kid'll cry when she's throwing a temper tantrum to trying to get her way; nah, they were the sort a kid'll cry whenever somebody hurts her. I just wanted to curl up in a corner and call my mom to come get me. I looked up at him with a bit of a glare, and he scared me even more, standing there and looking all stern. He crossed his arms and tilted his head at me.

"What _do_ you eat?"

"Whatever's not still crawling," I whispered.

I don't know what I'd done, but I think I made him mad. He turned on heel and stormed toward the door, muttering under his breath in Mando'a the whole way. When his hand was on the handle, I called out to him—quite feebly, I might add.

"Uh, I'm partial to uj cake!" I whimpered, hoping to make it all better.

He shot me a glare, shook his head, and started muttering again. Out the door he went, and I was even lonelier than before. So, naturally, I began to cry as I dragged myself up to bed. I didn't even bother to get in my pajamas. I just dove under the covers and pulled them up over my head, sobbing for my mother and bemoaning my fate of having to stay with a man who didn't even like me, much less who could cook well! Miserable existence, huh? I thought so.


	3. Exploring

**Chapter Three – Exploring**

I woke up the next morning with the taste of salt in my mouth, and I realized I'd cried myself to sleep. If you thought a six-year-old couldn't get depressed, you're wrong, because I did. I still missed my mother terribly, and I was practically starving (Well, okay, maybe not _starving_, but I was really hungry!). With a sigh, I managed to pull myself out of bed and drag downstairs. I expected to see Jango down there wearing that glare of his, but he was nowhere in sight. I got a little skittish about not knowing where he was all the time, but my attention was quickly diverted to the kitchen table when I saw the most glorious sight in the galaxy: a big ol' tray of uj cake. I didn't even stop to think about where it'd come from as I squealed and raced into the kitchen for my breakfast. Happily, I dug in, and when I'd gotten about seven bites down, I noticed a note lying on the table beside the tray. I picked it up and practiced my reading skills.

"_Out for a bit. Be back later. Don't make yourself sick on that cake._

_-J"_

Well, I began to feel a bit more special. First he'd actually scraped up my precious cake for me, and then he'd taken the twenty necessary seconds to write me a note. I'd have called him a sweet guy if it weren't for the fact that my mouth was full of sticky, sugary cake. By the time my stomach was full, my mouth was dry, so I chased the cake with a glass of milk before glancing around the house. The sudden urge to explore came over me, and I looked about quite sneakily. There weren't that many doors and hiding places, really. There were only two that interested me, so off I went. When I opened the door to the first room, I was surprised to find myself in Jango's bedroom. It was just as sparsely decorated as mine was, maybe even more so, but what got my attention was the set of shiny blue and silver armor hanging on an armor rack in the corner. As if that wasn't enough, there was a matching helmet with a unique-looking T-visor sitting on the bedside table, and a jetpack, of all things, was resting on the floor next to the rack. I'm pretty sure I remember the word "Wow" coming out of my mouth as one long, drawn-out syllable that ended up sounding like "Woooooooooooooooooow." I was completely spellbound by that set of armor that I actually walked over to it and touched it even though I was certain I shouldn't have. I was so suddenly overcome by the feeling of having trespassed and being really "in for it" that I wheeled around and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind myself. But when I got back out, nobody was in the house except me, and I wasn't in any danger. Well, on to the next room!

That next room completely took my breath away more than the armor ever had. The first thing was that the door was unlocked, but the second thing was all the huge guns and other equipment the room contained! It was like Jango had his very own armory right inside his house! Now _that_ was cool. I couldn't help but squeal and run for the biggest rifle I could find, but do you really blame me? I mean, let's face it. Big guns kick _shebs_. Anyway, when I found I couldn't reach the biggest rifle in the room, I settled for the biggest one I could heft. Once I found a fairly lightweight one (which ended up being a light repeater), I promptly grabbed it and began packing it around the room. I don't know what I was doing; maybe I was pretending to be a Mando warrior. Or maybe I was just so awestruck by both the armor and the sheer amount of weaponry that I was having delusions of getting my own armor and very large rifle. (Of course, I'm sure you know by now that this is what does happen, but please, allow me to tell the story!) Well, I pranced around the room with my newfound toy, but then I heard a familiar, accented voice behind me.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

I spun around to find Jango leaning in the doorway, but I didn't get scared that time. I just lifted up my rifle and beamed. I don't know what happened in his mind, but when he saw me holding that rifle and grinning, he crossed his arms, tilted his head, and nodded slowly.

"Hmm," he said, and that was all he said. I tell you, the man was a man of few words!

I stared at him for a while, and he stared at me—studying me again, no doubt—for a good long time, too, until he walked over and tried to take the rifle from me. I protested, clutching it. (Hey, quit laughing! It was a good little repeater! Had a good accuracy and was light enough to carry on a utility belt!) _Anyway_, he chuckled, seemingly pleased with my reluctance to surrender my plaything (at least I _thought_ it was a plaything), and knelt down to my level. I noticed that, for the first, time, his eyes actually seemed . . . well, _friendly_. They were a nice, rich brown color, and I wondered if all _Mando'ade_ had eyes that stared like that. I got a little nervous because of that stare, but I relaxed when he squeezed my shoulder.

"Now, what were you doing?" he asked again.

I answered with the first thing that popped into my head.

"I was playing to be a Mandalorian," I answered, shuffling my foot on the floor and gazing affectionately at "my" rifle. "Like my mama's people."

He studied me for a few more moments, as if sizing me up for something. Then he patted my arm.

"Would you like to be Mando for real, _ad'ika_?"

I nodded emphatically; I'd heard such great stories about the Mando clans that I wanted to be one, too! Besides, it was my mother's blood. Ever heard of genetics, hereditary traits and all that jazz, or did you skip biology class? Anyway, as I nodded excitedly, Jango stood and lifted an even larger repeater from a rack on the wall. It was just like mine, except it was . . . well, larger. He patted me on the head and nodded to the door.

"Well, come on. Target practice comes first."

He helped me toss my rifle onto my back by slinging its strap across my chest and shoulder. I figured that was the first lesson of becoming Mando, so I was naturally proud to have passed with flying colors. (Though trust me when I say that learning the Mandalorian ways is not as easy as hefting a rifle onto your back.) As we headed out of the armory and outside to where he had a nice little firing range set up, I wondered if there was supposed to be some sort of sudden cultural immersion to get me psyched for my training of sorts. Well, there wasn't. As he said, we started with target practice, and we stayed out there the entire day. He didn't say much, but when he did, it was about the history and culture of the _Mando'ade_. So not only was I learning how to shoot (and at the tender age of six, too!), but I was getting a lesson on the more interesting half of my DNA.

Oh, and you know how he started me on this at age six? Well, Mando warriors don't even begin training until they're eight. I had a feeling he had something special planned for me.


	4. Adoption and Moving

**Chapter Four – Adoption and Moving**

Now, if I went through and described in great detail every day of the next two years, this story would get very boring very quickly. So I will spare you that and just skip forward to the year I turned eight. I was learning the Mando ways quite quickly; apparently, it really is true that kids learn stuff faster and better than adults. I still clearly remember the day before my eighth birthday. I asked Jango what'd happened to my mother, why she hadn't come back for me or even contacted me yet, and he explained that she'd left me with him. Permanently. I'd basically been abandoned by my mother. Quite frankly, that was a hard pill to swallow. I remember crying for several hours before working up the guts to declare her _dar'buir_—no longer a parent. You'd have to be Mando to fully understand the significance of that word. It means I, the child, had basically divorced her, the mother. It was as if I'd completely broken off all family relations with her; disowned her, I guess. All that, packed into one little three-syllable word. Can you believe it? While I was at it, I went ahead and declared my father _dar'buir_, too, since he had abandoned me years before for those vices of his. So I was a literal orphan without parents, without a real home. Yeah, I was scared. What kid wouldn't be? Eight years old and disowning my parents? Yeah. That was frightening. Thank goodness Jango had gotten used to me. He just tousled my hair and asked if I could live the six tenets of Mandalorian life—the _Resol'Nare_. He asked if I was ready to become a true _Mando'ad_. I said yes to both, and I meant it. Then he said a few words that completely flipped my world upside down and inside out: "_Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad._" It took me a couple minutes to completely understand what he'd said, since it was a major shock. In short, he'd just adopted me as his own kid with those few little words. Apparently, he'd liked me enough to make me his daughter. That's all adoption is for _Mando'ade_. No long court trials, no endless paperwork . . . Just a simple statement.

So that was the day I became a Fett.

That was also the day I received a set of plans from him. It was jumbled up, with one piece listed for each day of the next five years. When he brought me materials and paint, I knew they were the plans for my very own armor. He knew I'd grow; that's why he was letting me build one small component of the armor per day. If I grew, only pieces of it would have to be redone instead of the entire set. And so, that was how my days began. I woke up to build a piece, no matter how small, of my armor, then Jango and I would go on a four-mile-round-trip run. He was teaching me physical strength and endurance, and I learned quickly, because I beat him back to the house almost every morning. It was on one such morning that the name I eventually called him on a regular basis came tumbling out: _Jang'buir_—Papa Jango. He didn't seem to mind, especially considering how I was officially adopted and all that. In fact, I thought he was really beginning to like me.

There were a few times when I had to hold down the fort, so to speak, by myself. His day job of sorts was bounty hunting, I learned, so he was off several weeks out of the year chasing bounties. I didn't mind; I was getting pretty good at staying home by myself. Besides, those bounties he kept collecting on were what kept food in our mouths and clothes on our backs. And I knew he was teaching me to be a Mando hunter, too, but I didn't care. I wanted to be one, actually. They got to use the biggest guns and wear the fanciest armor, and that—and the honor of the fight, of course—was what I wanted. And, well, I got to fly the _Slave I_ from time to time. Another plus! Anyway, on the days he was gone, I'd spent my time in front of the firing range, shooting off round after round until I got a bulls' eye. Sometimes I'd sit there for hours, crouched on a rock at the far end of the range—meaning I was sitting at the other end of a field peering down the scope of a sniper rifle. Line 'em up . . . ease my finger into the trigger guard . . . and squeeze. _Blam!_ Another of the targets _Jang'buir_ had set up for me bit the dust.

So that was the way I spent my alone days. My life was pretty routine until the year I turned nine. My armor was coming along nicely; I was beginning to tell what it'd look like even if I hadn't yet decided on the color. Personally, I was partial to a matte black and silver, but we're getting off the subject. Now, I was out sniping practice targets one day when _Jang'buir_ came up diagonally alongside me. (You should be a hunter to understand the importance of coming up on someone's diagonal. If you come up right behind 'em, they might get scared and shoot you. If you come up in their peripheral vision, you've got a better chance of survival.) Anyway, I saw him coming, so I put the trigger safety back on and turned.

"Evenin', _Jang'buir,_" I said with a grin.

He nodded at me and stared down the range to the targets. He gave a small smirk of satisfaction when he saw my seven or eight shots all in a circle in the center of the target.

"Your accuracy's improving, _ad'ika_," he said. I murmured my thanks before he continued. "I've got a new job."

"So soon?" I asked. "You just got home from that job over on that Bogden moon."

"I know, but we're going to Kamino. I've been hired for a special job this time."

I arched an eyebrow at him, but he didn't say anything. I just shouldered my rifle and we went back to the house. The whole way, I couldn't help but mull it over in my mind. He'd said _we_ were going. That meant I wasn't staying on _Manda'yaim_ that time. I wondered what was going on, but he never took the minute and a half he would've needed to explain to me. All I knew was that he and I packed everything we'd ever owned—every rifle, especially—into the cargo hold of the _Slave I_ within an hour. And what was different was that he was wearing his armor. Not his _buy'ce_—his helmet—but just his armor. Something suspicious was going on, but I did my best not to ask questions when we climbed into the _Slave I_ that night. I just remember seeing this . . . this _pride_ glowing on Jango's face.

Yes, I called him Jango instead of _Jang'buir_. It was because he was sitting there so straight and tall and silent that he suddenly he felt less like my father and more like a complete stranger. I was frustrated to no ends to have been left out of the loop on why we had suddenly packed up and left, but I didn't ask. All I knew was that my training to up and leave at a minute's notice was beginning to pay off. But why we were going to Kamino . . . now that I couldn't answer. I didn't even know where—or what—Kamino was. So I just studied Jango's face until I fell asleep.


	5. Kamino

**Chapter Five – Kamino **

I woke up in the middle of the next afternoon lying on a sterile white bed in a sterile white room. It was as if I'd forgotten we were moving, because I jumped sky-high when I saw where I was. Hey, come on! Nine years old and in a place that looks like a mental institution?! Please. I was freaked completely out. What made it worse was I didn't see _Jang'buir_ anywhere nearby. Not only was I in this insanely pristine place, but I was completely alone. Well, I went ballistic. I started running around, looking for a way out, and trying to find a door. Oh, I found a door, all right. I found it when I ran smack-dab into it as Jango was coming in. He looked tired, but despite that, he laughed when I staggered back, holding my bruised nose. (You'd laugh, too, if the kid you'd adopted and were training as a Mandalorian bounty hunter had just smacked up with a _door_!) I didn't get mad at him for laughing at me, because by then, he was laughing _with_ me. But I noticed he still looked tired, so our laughter dwindled as he headed off to the 'fresher. When he came out a few minutes later and collapsed into his bunk, I noticed a bandage wrapped around the bend of his arm and part of his forearm. Slowly, I crept over to his side and tapped him on the shoulder.

"_Jang'buir_?" I said.

"Mm," was all he replied. Poor guy; half asleep as it was!

"What happened to your arm?"

"Got some blood taken."

Ew. At nine years old, hearing about somebody getting blood sucked out of them was more than a little disgusting. I shivered and looked at him again.

"_Jang'buir_?"

"Mm." Yes, yes, repeat the cycle.

"Why'd you get blood taken?"

He rolled over onto his side and looked at me, as if wondering how I could have so many questions bundled up inside me. Up close, he looked even more tired than when he'd walked into the room. I wondered just what those people who'd taken his blood had done to him and how much blood they'd actually taken! I reached over and patted his arm, and he flopped back down onto his bunk before he answered.

"You really want to know, _Ro'ika_?" That was his pet name for me, and personally, I liked to hear it.

"Well, of course."

"They're going to make a clone army out of me."

Bombshell.

I stared at him, eyes wide. They were going to make an army out of this guy?! Sure, I knew he was tough. He was probably the toughest guy I knew. He'd make excellent soldier material if he wasn't such a loner. I was probably the only other person he tolerated. (Okay, okay, "tolerated" might be a bit of an understatement. The guy adopted me, after all.) Yet somehow I just couldn't see dozens—hundreds—thousands—_millions_ of him running around. I started to ask more questions, but he was asleep.

So _that_ was what they'd been doing to him. They'd been sucking out his blood and DNA for hours, maybe even since we landed the night before. No wonder he looked so exhausted. I guessed that being scanned so you can get cloned a million times wears you out! And I suddenly realized why he'd looked so excited and proud the night before. Come on; any guy who's gonna get an entire army of Mandalorian clones is bound to be proud that they came from him!

I climbed back into my own bunk and drew my knees up under my chin to watch _Jang'buir_ sleep. After a while, I got bored, so I peered out the door's peephole to see what there was to see. There was nothing except miles of sterile white halls and seven-foot-tall fish-looking people whom I learned later were the native Kaminoans and thus the cloners. Growing increasingly curious about the wet, stormy planet which was currently our home, I crawled down from my bunk and crept from the room. I actually felt sorry for Jango; he was so exhausted from . . . well, _everything_ that even my opening the door didn't wake him. To "get" that, you should know that the man will awake fully and completely if someone inhales too sharply. He sleeps on adrenaline. His nerves are always active. To be able to sneak out from under him is one heck of a feat. But I pulled it off, and in a matter of seconds, I was out in the halls—the only human in the entire bunch. Well, all right, so I saw a few gruff-looking males, which I decided, from the looks of them, that they were Mandalorians, as well. It occurred to me then that not only had _Jang'buir_ been having his DNA analyzed, but he had been picking out trainers for the troops, too. Talk about one heck of a busy first night at the new home base.

I wandered through the hallways for a bit, but nobody really questioned what I was doing out there by myself. I wondered if they'd learned the hard way not to mess with a Fett, so I smirked to myself. I wandered through those sterile white corridors doing an exploring of sorts. The place was silent as a tomb, and I wondered how these _kaminii_ ever got any cloning done when they weren't anywhere around. Of course, that was before I ambled past the main labs. The lab walls were clear glass, so I peered in to have a look. And I just about fell over. In however much time they had had between last night and that minute, they'd created one whole clone of _Jang'buir_, and it—he, I guessed, since he _was_ a clone, after all—was little more than a glob inside a pod. More of those cloners were sitting at computers, and even from where I stood, I could see that they were studying readouts containing all the data from _Jang'buir_'s genetic analysis. Still others were experimenting with various types of bubbling fluids, and my eyes went as wide as saucers as I glanced back to the first clone. Was that how all of them would look? Like blobs of nothing? And why was there only one? Was he just an experiment they'd use to figure out the formula to make the perfect clone soldier? So many questions raged through my little mind as I looked at him, and I was practically staggered by the knowledge that someday, that kid would end up looking _exactly_ like _Jang'buir_. Okay, maybe fewer scars and less of a menacing scowl, but he'd be an exact replica. I kept staring until one of the cloning techs looked up and saw me. Then I took off running back down the hall to our quarters, where I raced through the door and dived into my bunk, trembling. I lay there for an hour until _Jang'buir_ woke up, and at that point, I snapped my eyes shut and pretended _I_ was asleep. He muttered something about checking on progress and left the room, and I popped my eyes back open. I just sat there, thinking, for what seemed like years.

And I didn't know it then, but that blob in the pod was my brother.


	6. Sisterhood and Clone Boys

**Chapter Six – Sisterhood and Clone Boys**

My brother was born—unpodded—whatever!—a few months later. _Jang'buir_ kept him a secret until he brought him home from the lab. I was excited, needless to say, because I was turning ten in a few weeks and this was sort of like an advance birthday present. (Of course, I learned later that the little pest was Jango's price for his DNA—and that's not counting the huge lump of credits in his bank account.) The day _Jang'buir_ brought my brother (who had been named Boba when I wasn't looking) home to the barracks, I was waiting by the door. I knew how important family and fatherhood were to _Mando'ade_; what, you think I hadn't been paying attention all those years?! Besides, like most nine-year-old little girls, I was more than interested in having a younger sibling—preferably of the male gender—to play with and boss around if I could. Unlike "normal" girls, I didn't have dolls and such; I had sniper rifles. But now I had a little brother, so I bounced up to see him when _Jang'buir_ brought him in, all wrapped up in a little blanket and everything.

I'll tell you, whatever excitement I'd been feeling up to that moment vanished completely without a single trace. Why? Because this kid, which _Jang'buir_ seemed so incredibly proud of, was not as cute and adorable as I thought he'd be. He looked like a naked mole rat—with more hair. I would have preferred trading him in on a new sniper attachment, but since _Jang'buir_ looked so happy and so proud, I just kept my mouth shut and put on a huge grin. He looked at me and pulled the blanket away from the new baby so I could get a better look. Heh. Like I _wanted_ to look at that . . . thing?

"_Ro'ika_," he said, "this is your brother, Boba."

How lovely. Just what I'd always wanted: a rodent. And not only that, but he was an oddly-named rodent. Whatever possessed _Jang'buir_ to name the kid "Boba" went right over my head. But then I realized I could torture him for the rest of his days by calling him "Bobie." Frankly, it was one heck of a good idea. (Don't you see what was happening? I'd only been a sister for five minutes, and my evilness toward my younger brother was already taking form.) _Jang'buir_ asked if I wanted to hold Boba, so I said all right even though I was only doing it to make him happy. Well, he wasn't _so_ bad up close. He might've even been cute if it hadn't been for the inherent wet, naked rat factor. I asked _Jang'buir_ why Boba looked all wet and . . . well, _icky_. The explanation I got was that Boba was fresh out of the pod and hadn't had his first bath yet. I quickly suggested that he get one, which got a laugh out of _Jang'buir_. Um, hello? I hadn't intended it to be funny! I was being serious! Goodness. People always think that kids no absolutely nothing when we do, in fact, know a thing or two.

So, while _Jang'buir_ gave a squalling baby Boba (or "Bobie" as I was plotting to call him as soon as he was old enough to recognize his name) his very first bath, I wandered out of the barracks and out into the halls as I normally did when bored, lonely, or simply curious. That day, it was more on the bored and curious sides than anything. I hadn't heard anything else out of the clone army since I had first stumbled across the labs, so I decided to check up on things. I ambled through the halls, watching Kaminoans shuffling to and fro and the Mando trainers _Jang'buir_ had picked out preparing for their first students. That made me wonder if they'd made other little clones and if they were training age. I got my answer as soon as I rounded a corner and came out on a long, covered catwalk.

Hundreds—maybe even thousands, for all I knew—of pods filled a huge room as big as several docking bays. Each pod had a new baby clone in it, and I felt myself go absolutely breathless as I looked at it all. Of course, that was before I saw the room across the catwalks from the pod room. Dozens of little boys, each looking like a two-year-old Jango, were playing happily together as the men who would become their training sergeants looked on. Something went off in my head, and I began to wonder why these boys, who were probably cloned _after_ Boba was, were so much older than my brother. Then a phrase I'd heard a cloning tech mention in passing clicked back into my mind: growth acceleration. And I suddenly realized that these kids, who'd only been in existence as long as my new brother, were twice as old . . . because they'd been _programmed_ to be like that. Needless to say, I was absolutely astounded—horrified, really. I started doing some math in my head. If they aged two years for every year of their life (which is the simplest way of explaining it), then in five years, when I'd be fourteen, they'd be ten and approaching eleven. Ten years from that moment, when I'd be nineteen, they'd all be twenty or more. I just about tumbled off the catwalks, I was so surprised. From where I was standing, I couldn't see anything wrong with letting them grow naturally. But wait—they were all going to be an army. Apparently, accelerating them by use of chemicals, genetic tampering, whatever, was the only way to get them ready to go faster. My jaw dropped open as I looked back and forth between the pods and the happily playing boys. All this seemed exactly like—I hate to put it this way—a droid factory. They were cranking them out as fast as they could so they could get them to whatever the front lines would be by the time they were old enough. I suddenly felt so sorry for them and decided that if I could help them, then I would. But it would be difficult . . . There was no telling what those _shabla kaminii_ had done to them. And I knew that they would probably grow up without any knowledge of their Mando heritage unless their trainers taught them of it. That was what stung the most, I think. So I cried for them. I cried for what would happen to them. And I cried for myself, knowing my own _father_ was standing by and letting this atrocity happen.

As I stood there watching, one of the little boys turned around and saw me through the window. He grinned and waved, his big brown eyes sparkling. I grinned and waved right back at him as he turned to play some more with his brothers. Ready for a major twist (as if there haven't been enough in this story already)? Okay, here goes. That sweet little two-year-old whom I had never met would one day become the most important man in my life—yes, even more so than _Jang'buir_. Why? Because I would fall in love with him.


	7. First Bounties

**Chapter Seven – First Bounties**

The trouble with growing up on a world like Kamino was that my coming-of-age rite of passage would not be the traditional multi-day solo hunt through the jungles of _Manda'yaim_. Instead, I would go on my first job after a bounty which I considered rather petty until the details were explained . . . sort of. I guess I was excited about turning thirteen because my armor was finally finished. It fit me like a glove, thanks to some careful engineering for the growing years. I'd gotten my wish and painted it matte black with shiny silver streaks, and the day I put it on for the first time, I felt more Mando than I ever had before. Of course, that was also the day I began construction on my helmet. It took me about a week to get it just right, to make sure all the electronics worked, and to get it painted to match my armor. By then, _Jang'buir_ had had plenty of time to plot my rather unique ritual mission.

It all began when he took me down to the docking bays one morning and introduced me to an experimental fighter which would one day—after years of refining and improvement—become the ARC-170 . . . flown by ARC pilots, of course. Hurray for observation! Anyway, he gave me my task: learn how to fly it by the end of the day. Sounds simple, right? Just interrogate the mechanics on how it worked, get a couple lessons from the engineers, and take a couple solo flights around the system . . . Sure, you'd _think_ it was easy. But if you thought that, then you were dead wrong. There would be no mechanics to interrogate, no engineers to learn from. The thing didn't even come with an owners' manual! I had to learn how to fly an experimental—and therefore potentially unstable—fighter _by myself_, no help, by that evening. Whew. That hurt my brain just thinking back on it.

Needless to say, I was more than a little daunted by the task. For one thing, I wouldn't be going on my first job via the _Slave I_. I had really been looking forward to flying it . . . You can't really be a Fett bounty hunter without having flown it. Oh, sure, I'd gotten a few practice runs in it back on Mandalore, but that just wasn't the same as cruising around the galaxy in it with a bounty on the brain. The _Slave_ had something of a "wicked cool" feel to it; I think that's why I liked it. (Of course, that's ignoring the fact that it lands horizontally and flies vertically. Talk about _kandosii_!) Anyway, _Jang'buir_ left me alone in the hangar with my ship, and I glared at it somewhat as I crawled into the cockpit. At first glance, my eyes nearly leaped out of my skull. So . . . many . . . switches . . . It would've helped if they'd been labeled, but _nooooo_. Apparently, if I was going to learn how to fly the thing, I'd figure out what all the switches did before I blew myself up—which was the thing to avoid, obviously. As I sat there, wondering wherever to begin, something went off in my brain that made me think finding the emergency buttons would be the smartest way to start off. I figured that if I ever got into trouble, one of the buttons to know the location of would be the emergency eject. That one was easy to find. It was the only button that had been labeled, so I pressed it. Not smart. The cockpit canopy swung back and I was catapulted from the fighter, where I landed—_hard_—on my back on the rather cold floor of the hangar. I lay there, stunned and breathless, for about five minutes before it dawned on me just how stupid that move had been. Okay, so the eject button was labeled. Why test it when you already know what it's going to do? Nobody said we thirteen-year-olds are rocket scientist-level intelligent.

Anyway, I pushed myself up off the ground and dove back into the cockpit with an increased desire to learn all the tricks to flying an experimental fighter. Finding the control yoke was easy; it was the only thing that looked the most like the yoke of the _Slave I._ Since I'd found that, I went hunting for the switches that would get the engine up and running. Those took a lot longer to find. I ended up opening and closing the S-foils several times and blasting a few holes through the hangar door with the laser guns before I ever got the engine going. I think I was just grateful that I wasn't being watched and that I wasn't pressing that eject button again. Trust me when I say that was the most embarrassing thing I'd done in my life to that point.

Long story short, I finally dragged myself out of that cockpit several excruciatingly long hours later, feeling quite proud that I'd finally mastered that ship and was finally able to proclaim to _Jang'buir_ that I'd done it. How long did it take me, you wonder? Well, let's just say I had ten minutes to spare before I would've been dragged out by force and told I'd failed my first assignment to pass from girlhood to womanhood. Scary, isn't it? Anyhow, I shuffled back to the barracks, quite tired and ready for a good nights' sleep. _Jang'buir_ met me at the door, smiling faintly but proudly. He said I'd done well (which made me wonder if I hadn't really been watched. Did he see that eject?! I hoped not) and that I was nearly ready for my first job. The only thing standing between me and leaving for my first bounty was actually _flying_ that fighter. As if learning how hadn't been enough, he wanted me to take my solo flight. So I dragged back to the hangar, forced myself back into the cockpit, tugged my flight helmet on, and revved up the engines. Out I went into the rain (typical Kamino weather; that day was actually considered _good_ weather, if you can believe it) before heading for the black space around the planet. I must've cruised around out there for a full hour or more before _Jang'buir_'s voice came over the comlink, praising me for a first flight well done and telling me I could come home. By then, I'd _really_ begun to wonder if there wasn't some sort of camera attached to me. As I came in for my landing, I began inspecting the cockpit for anything that looked even remotely like a cam. I found one situated just off-center behind me on the canopy. With a smirk, I turned and grinned smugly at it.

"Nice try, _Jang'buir_," I chuckled as I ripped it free.

When I returned to the barracks, I learned that the cam had been a test to see if I was observant enough to figure out when I was under surveillance. And so, I'd passed two of three tests with flying colors. The third one was revealed to me as I hopped into bed that night. _Jang'buir_ had chosen a bounty for me to hunt; not too hard, but not too easy. In fact, it was one where I could choose what I wanted to do, in a sense. It was a five thousand credit reward on an ex-con who'd escaped and was making trouble for the feds on some far-off planet. Heh, listen to me talk. Kamino was so far out that I'd never even heard of it until we moved there, but I'm getting off-topic. Anyway, the bounty was actually worded as "Wanted: dead or alive. Five thousand credit reward for capture or elimination of dangerous criminal." There was more to it, but the three things that caught my attention were the words "dead or alive." Dead _or_ alive. That meant I didn't have to kill him just to make five grand! Oh, sure, I knew the feds would probably string him up or stick him in the electric chair, but at least _I_ didn't have to kill him myself. You see, I didn't really like killing people for no reason unless they came at me first. So, I was planning to take this guy alive, turn him in, and then head back with my money. I just didn't tell _Jang'buir_ this because I knew he preferred the "dead" half of it to the "alive" one. He claimed you got paid more if you brought 'em in dead, but I think he did it just for the pleasure of the hunt and kill. That's why he wasn't just _any_ Mandalorian. He was a born-and-bred hunter, and he expected me to be the same.

Uh, news flash, _Jang'buir_. I'm not actually your kid, if you feel like discussing biology. If anybody's gonna be a born-and-bred hunter-slash-killer, it'll be Boba. He's your clone, remember? The rodent? Whatever. Basically, I just went to bed saying, "Yeah, yeah, I'll get that guy. No worries." Yet I actually doubted myself. I'd never been pitted against a live human. I'd trained and play-fought with _Jang'buir_ and one of his sergeants—a fellow called Skirata, to be exact—but I'd never fought someone whose every move could be a complete surprise to me. The simulators the clones used were open to me, as well, but even they weren't exactly a preparation for the real world. So, naturally, I barely slept that night.

I awoke at the crack of dawn and jumped into my armor before wolfing down a bite of breakfast at the mess hall with some of the nine- and ten-year-old troopers-in-training. After that, I dashed back to the barracks for a quick 'fresher visit (which is hard to do in armor, since you have to peel most of it off. Troublesome, that) before loading up my personal arsenal. If there was one thing I'd learned from Skirata (other than fighting with my hands), it was to always carry a knife. He taught me how to keep one tucked up in my sleeve so the subtlest conscious flick of my wrist could bring its hilt down into my hand. To be honest, he'd only had to demonstrate for me once before I picked up on it. Besides, he'd said, most folks don't expect surprises like that. They're usually more expectant of things like blasters. And thus, I carried not one—not two—but _three_ knives on me at all times. The first one was stashed in a secret compartment on the underside of my right forearm guard. The second was in a sheath on my left hip where it could be visible to whoever I was up against, and the third was tucked inside my right boot. In addition to my babies, I had a custom-built blaster pistol resting in a black leather holster on my thigh and a large repeating rifle slung across my back. And then there was the string of grenades and other explosive ordnance tied around my waist. Oh, and did I mention I was only thirteen years old? Of course, I didn't _look_ it once I had my helmet on. The vocabulator in the helmet made me sound at least seventeen, and if I swaggered just right, I looked like a five-foot-four twenty-year-old with a long string of flash-bangs and plasma grenades. Let's face it—I was counting on my apparent age to get people to take me seriously. Because, I mean, what person in their right mind is going to let a thirteen-year-old girl claim a five thousand credit bounty? That's what I thought.


	8. Stalking

**Chapter Eight – Stalking **

I left Kamino a short while after all my gear was organized and either on me or stashed in the super-small cargo hatch of my fighter. I had an actual destination; the criminal I had my sights on (not literally, of course. Remember my plan?) had taken to hiding on Nar Shaddaa. It's been said that if you want to get lost, the Smuggler's Moon is the place to run to. He'd apparently come to light there, so it wasn't like I'd have to run all over the Force-blame galaxy to track him down. I will admit: I was nervous about going to Nar Shaddaa. I'd only been away from home . . . well, _never_, now that I think of it. Normally it was _Jang'buir_ who would go out for the hunt. But this _was_ my rite of passage into Mando womanhood, so I figured I needed to get over the wimp factor and do my best. Besides, I was in a brand-new set of black and silver armor, and I was loaded with guns, grenades, and—of course—my knives. Now, you tell me: who'd _really_ want to tangle with a fully armored Mandalorian huntress? Nobody with brains in their skulls, that's for sure. The chances are slim and none that folks will run up to pick a fight with you because they know you will hand their _shebs_ to them on a platter of Alderaanian silver.

Anyway, I arrived at Nar Shaddaa that afternoon. Well, it was closer to evening by the time I landed, which was advantageous for me because I knew that all the bars were just now getting into full swing. If Mr. Criminal—whose name I hadn't learned but didn't care to know—were like any other con, he'd come out for a few rounds of Corellian whiskey and perhaps a little move-making on the bar girl. The trouble was that Nar Shaddaa must've had a dozen cantinas all lined up in a row in the entertainment sector. It was going to be one heck of a hunt trying to locate a half drunk guy I could barely pick out of a lineup. (I say this because the last holo they had of him was when he was arrested the first time. I had it stashed in a tiny holo player in my left wrist guard so I could check anybody I met against the image.) So, I just decided to start at the first cantina and work my way down the street. I'd find him one way or another even if I had to drag him, butt-naked, out of a hotel room and away from his latest female find. (Needless to say, I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. If there was one thing I was unwilling to see, it was that particular section of the male anatomy.) Nevertheless, I swaggered into the first cantina, and the place went almost silent. It was as if they'd never seen a Mando in person before, and I wondered to myself if I really looked that deadly. I guessed I did, judging from the expression of terror that came over the bartender's face as I sidled up to the bar.

"W—what'll it b—be?" he stammered. Poor guy, so scared he was practically wetting his pants.

"Nothin' today," I said with a nod.

He turned and scurried off to the other end of the bar to wait on some more peaceable-looking customers. I wondered just what had him so scared. I mean, it wasn't like I was the only Mandalorian in the galaxy. But then I remembered the emblem on my right shoulder guard—the emblem of the Fetts. Anybody who'd ever heard of Jango had heard of his coat of arms of sorts, and the fact that I was wearing it, too, made me one of _his_ kind, as I heard another patron whisper. To me, "his kind" translated to "bloodthirsty Mando killers who'll slit their own mothers' throats!" Well, that's an exaggeration. I'd never slit my mother's throat . . . maybe just give her a smack across the jaw for abandoning me. Yeah, that was still a sore spot. I ignored the pang of pain and betrayal as I looked out across the cantina floor. Things had gone back to normal since I was staying very quiet and not making trouble. Since I was still getting used to my visor, I had to study each patron individually. I wasn't yet used to the instant scan feature that could tell me in an instant if the person I was looking at was the person I was looking _for_. (You see, that holo player in my wrist was connected to my _buy'ce_ by way of a wireless transmitter. If I were to look at my target, the inside of my visor would blink rapidly to tell me. Yep, _very_ high-tech. It was what later served as prototype for the helmets the more advanced clone units such as the commandos and ARCs wore. Aren't I just so _special_?) I stood there in that cantina for a full ten minutes before I realized I wasn't going to be that fortunate. My target wasn't there, so I ambled out and headed down the street to the next one. I was beginning to get a kick out of this bar-hopping, for as I entered every cantina, the bartenders would get absolutely terrified, and as I left, they'd heave huge sighs of relief. I actually began to find humor in the way they held their breath from the time I came in to the time I went out. I even stayed in one cantina for a full hour just to see if the barkeep would turn blue. He didn't, so I figured he'd cheated and had an inhale or two of smoky cantina air.

Anyway, it was getting very dark outside by the time I was coming to the end of my cantina search, and I was getting tired and a bit thirsty. I was nervous about getting something to drink, though, because I was scared to let people see my face. I didn't want them to know I was a _kid_. I mean, if I'd been scaring the pants off the bartenders all night just because of my armor, I didn't really want to become the laughingstock of _Mando'ade_ everywhere! It would've been . . . embarrassing, quite frankly. As I stepped into the last cantina, it occurred to me that I could grab a drink and take a table in a dark corner so no one would see my face. So, that's exactly what I did. I ambled in, scared the _osik_ out of another bartender, and ordered a glass of seltzer water. The poor barkeep handed me my glass with a trembling hand, I paid for it, and off I went to that darkened corner table I'd spotted on my way in. I thought I'd be happy to get my helmet off and get a breath of fresh air, but frankly, I'd have been happier to leave it on and breathe through the respirator! The fumes of deathsticks being smoked and whiskey being drunk nearly made me nauseous. I was just grateful I wasn't the one doing the smoking and drinking. As I sat there sipping my seltzer, I gradually became more tolerant of the hazy smokiness of the bar, studying every patron in hopes of finding my target. Well, I'd just taken a rather large gulp from my glass when I nearly spit it out across the table. Why, you ask? Well, I'd hoped you would have figured it out by now. If you didn't, I nearly spewed my seltzer because I'd just spotted my target. Bingo.


	9. Payoff

**Chapter Nine – Payoff**

He was sitting in a corner with a rather lovely young lady (even though she was pretty, I'm absolutely certain she was one of those . . . erm . . . "hired women" that hang around cantinas in hopes of catching new clients.) Personally, I'd rather have found him alone. Having a woman with him had made getting him away a whole heck of a lot harder. I sighed as I finished off my seltzer and snapped my helmet into place. Just as I anticipated, as soon as my visor locked onto that guy, it started flashing at me to tell me I'd found my man (not in the figurative sense, mind you! I was only _thirteen_!). I sat there studying him until he leaned over, gave his girlfriend a quick peck on the cheek, and she left. Apparently, he'd said something along the lines of "I'll meet you at the hotel room in a few" because she sauntered out of that cantina with the absolute trashiest—or maybe smuttiest would be better—expression on her face I'd ever seen in my young, naïve life . . . like she was about to make her own killing. If I was quick enough, I could get my target out of there, turn him over to the feds, and leave with a fistful of credits before she even got a chance to slip into something "more comfortable."

Anyway, after she left, I rose from my seat and swaggered over to the escaped con. He glanced up at me as I approached, and I could've sworn that he jumped completely out of his skin. He looked me over for a few moments, and I looked him over from within the safe confines of my helmet. He was your typical scuzzy space mongrel, what with the face that hadn't been shaved in months and the hair that hadn't been washed in an equally long amount of time. I figured that if I hadn't had my helmet on, I would've smelled liquor very strongly on his breath whenever he spoke. That thought disgusted me, but I stood still as he and I continued to stare at each other.

"Whaddaya want?" he growled, his voice slurred slightly.

Now, this was where it got a little tricky. Did I out-and-out inform him of the five thousand credit price on his head and tell him I was taking him to the feds, or did I pretend to be friendly until I had to bring my knee up into his sweet spot and _then_ haul him out? I was happier with Plan A, quite frankly. I wanted to leave him in a prison cell and be on my way home in record time with a full pocket. So I tilted my head at him, keeping my phrases short and to the point, as I'd heard _Jang'buir_ do.

"You're coming with me."

"'Scuse me?" He arched an eyebrow at me. "What gives you the right to order me around?"

I smacked the holographic wanted poster down on the table, the 3-D crystals making it up glittering in the dim light.

"_This_ gives me the right."

He took the poster and looked it over, nodding, before he smacked it into my hand and crossed his arms, studying me some more. I wondered if he wasn't seeing through my armor to the still-physically maturing girl inside.

"I figured that was why you were here. But let me tell you somethin', little bounty hunter." He leaned across the table, smirking at me. "I'm wanted on fifteen planets for a dozen or more various crimes, including manslaughter and armed assault. I've been tracked by just about every hunter there is in this galaxy. When I got nabbed, I broke loose. When I broke loose, I had a dozen more hunters on my tail, and each of 'em tried to take me. And y'know somethin' else, little bounty hunter? Not one of them got away alive."

He sat back, a grin of cruel satisfaction crossing his face. I gulped beneath my visor as I noticed the twelve marks on his blaster. There was enough room for one more . . . And it'd be me if I wasn't careful. I put all my weight on one hip and took a rather cocky stance as he stroked his unshaven chin and continued.

"I'm always up for a baker's dozen . . ." he smirked. "Except I've never been tracked by a _Fett_. This is something new . . . I didn't think there were more than just that Jango feller we hear about all the time."

"I'm a limited edition," I quipped.

"That so? Well, I wonder why ol' Jango didn't come after me himself."

There was something nasty in the way he said that, so I glared hard at him as I leaned forward, crossing my arms.

"Perhaps he thought you were beneath him, you _chakaar_," I snarled.

"Strong language," he sneered. I was nearly ready to pound his nose into the back of his skull and inform him that I could come up with much stronger language. "As I recall, the reward's paid on Corellia. We ain't anywhere near Corellia."

Um, can anyone say "problem"? Somehow, I'd forgotten that my fighter barely only held me. Of course, there was the co-pilot's spot behind me . . . I could always drug him, tie him up, and sling him in there. Or I could just shove him in the cargo hatch. But if he got space sick, I'd rather not have to clean that up.

"I'll just have to take you with me, then," I said. "Now, are you comin' with me?"

He looked at me and smirked.

"Sure, little bounty hunter."

He took the last swig of his drink before rising from the lazy position he was sitting in. He ambled out of the cantina, me at his back, and I could've sworn that expressions of confusion mixed with relief and a bit of fear washed over the faces of every patron present. Hey, I didn't blame them. A Mando hunter hauling off a target? Scary. Anyway, we went out on the street, headed for my ship, and we'd only gotten about fifteen feet away from the cantina before I heard the sound of leather crackling. I stiffened, and as I took another step, that dirty _hut'uun_ actually had the nerve to take a shot at me! Adrenaline surged through me as the blaster bolt nicked my armor, cutting a groove in the shoulder plate. I wheeled around, my blaster having cleared its holster in point-five seconds, and I fired one magnificently aimed shot right into his chest. As he crumpled and I slipped my blaster back into its holster, I grimaced when I realized I'd done exactly the thing I'd wanted to avoid. But it'd been in self-defense, so I felt better as I flicked my wrist and my knife dropped into my hand. I stormed over to him, where he was dying, and I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him up against the wall, the point of my knife right at his Adam's apple. As I glared at him, he choked on the blood that was slowly accumulating in his mouth and throat from the severity of his injury. It'd hit just below his heart; I could tell that just by looking at him. I needed to improve my accuracy, it seemed . . . Anyway, I leveled him with an ice queen stare, my eyes flashing.

"Okay, pal, what was that all about?!" I barked, pressing my knife into his throat. I wasn't trying to kill him, since he was on his way out anyway . . . I was just ticked off.

"I told ya . . . Nobody . . . takes . . . me," he choked.

"Sorry, buddy, but I'm on my way through my Mando rite of passage and need your bounty to get through! And by trying to kill me, you just made me angry. Ever made a Fett angry? It's not a pretty sight!"

I was pressing my blade so hard against his throat that I'd actually nicked the flesh. A trickle of blood dribbled from beneath the shining silver blade, and he offered a gurgling protest before the shot to his chest got the better of him and he slipped from my grip. Frankly, I left him there. I wiped off my knife on his shirt before sheathing it in my gauntlet again. As I turned on heel and strode from the scene, I swore several times under my breath for having to kill the guy anyway. Despite his list of crimes and convicted felons that was ten miles long, I actually wished my shot had been higher so it would've been an instantaneous thing and I wouldn't have had to get my knife at his throat. I was certain that when I told _Jang'buir_ of the event, he'd praise me and told me I'd done an excellent job. Of course, I had to get to Corellia and claim my bounty first. I hoped they wouldn't need to see a body for identification . . . If the feds on Corellia were as scared as the bartenders there on Nar Shaddaa, I'd have no trouble at all convincing them I was the rightful recipient of the five grand.

The trip to Corellia wasn't too bad; it was something of a bounce closer to the Core. The only thing was that it made the trip home longer, but I didn't care. I'd be returning to the sterile white halls of Kamino with a pocket full of five thousand credits. Wow. That number hadn't sounded so high before. It was almost insane to think that I was about to become the proud owner of _five thousand credits_! Of course, that was assuming _Jang'buir_ wouldn't make me donate some to the family bank account. What was even easier, once I hit Coronet, was finding the feds. I hadn't thought they'd be in such a centralized location. I figured they'd be . . . ohh . . . spread out through the cantinas out on Treasure Ship Row. But nah, they were in an office building, hiding like cowards from the criminals, so I strode in there and waved the wanted poster in their faces, demanding my money. They didn't question me; it must've been the facelessness of my blue-tinted visor and that oh-so-recognizable Fett emblem on my shoulder. Needless to say, I walked in and out in a few minutes, clutching my money and beaming proudly underneath my helmet. I'll tell you, it felt _good_ to hold that money, and for a moment, I wondered if that was a bad thing.

I raced back to Kamino, where I very excitedly thrust the money into _Jang'buir_'s hands as I recounted the events of my first bounty. Just as I thought he would, he praised me when I told him I'd killed the con, but it was like he hadn't even heard me when I'd said I'd had to kill him in self-defense. That part kind of irritated me, since I liked stories to be related with the facts in their completeness. But the one good part—all right, _two_ good parts—was that I got to keep my money and _Jang'buir_ declared me a true Mando woman.

Now _that_ was satisfying. Of course, I let it go to my head when I began striding around the halls and smirking. Bad move. Why? Oh, just read the next chapter.


	10. Never Mess With ARCs

**A/N: **All right, so this is the place where some (most cough) of the chapters start to be something of a tie-in with JaxSolo's _Zero Line_. I do have her permission, so thanks, girl! hugs you

**Chapter Ten – Never Mess With ARCs**

The year I turned seventeen, I'd been on all of two hunts, both for petty bounties. _Jang'buir_ absolutely would _not_ let me get out and practice. He preferred doing the dirty, high-paying work himself, often leaving Boba and me home alone among thousands of strange clone troopers and even stranger _kaminii_. Even after living among them for years, they were still so elusive and mysterious. There was only one I really worried about—a female called Taun We. She seemed to know absolutely everything about the army, so if there was something out of place, I suspected her before anyone else.

So hers was the name that came to my mind one particular day just after my seventeenth birthday. _Jang'buir_ was gone on a job, and I was bored out of my kriffin' skull, so I went on a stroll through the compound. I quickly crossed the catwalk in the pod room; I still hated that place because they were still making the clones. Once I reached the other side, my pace went back to a more leisurely one, and I shoved my hands in my pockets (since I wasn't wearing my armor at the time—just a tunic and trousers) as I wandered through the halls. In fact, I was out to meet some of the elites like the ARCs or commandos. Oh, sure, I'd been told to avoid them at all costs, but have you ever known me (or any Fett, for that matter) to do as told? I thought not.

I passed the simulators and peered in through the glass walls to watch the soldiers train. They were doing so incredibly _well_, and I was awestruck. Most of those guys looked sixteen or older even though I knew they'd only been around for eight years or so. I was so intrigued by the skill with which they rampaged through the sims that I walked right smack dab into one of them as I wandered down the hall. I looked up and found myself coming face to visor with a tall ARC in black and navy armor with a rather large sword slung across his back. I couldn't see his face, but I could tell something had him irritated. My running into him had only made it worse, but I was so embarrassed that I smarted off with the first thing I could while glaring up into the T-section of his visor.

"Hey! I'm walkin' here!"

Well, the ARC glared right down at me, and I'm certain that if I could've seen his face, I would have seen one nasty scowl. He set his hands on his hips, looking more irritated and ticked off than he had before.

"Look, kid," he growled, "you don't come hikin' around where us ARCs walk, a' right?! Now, you just shake off that _osik'la_ attitude of yours and move it before my trainer comes, and we'll _both_ shake it off you!"

Okay, that made me angry, needless to say. (Remember the story of my first bounty? Then you know making me angry is very bad. Of course, angering an ARC is just as bad, but I didn't know that little tidbit then.) I glared up at him, my hands resting tightly on my hips as I shot him the most hateful look I could.

"Then I guess you wouldn't know who I am. I practically have free run of the place since it's _his_ face under that _buy'ce_ of yours anyway. So you watch your tongue! If _Jang'buir_ hears of this, you're in for it. Seriously."

Do I even have to tell you how absolutely stupid those words made me feel as soon as they were out of my mouth? I was _seventeen_, for Force's sake! I was too old to be running for Daddy every time I got in a scrape. C'mon, if I was a Fett woman, I should've been able to take an ARC, right? I continued to stare at the trooper, who crossed his arms and snorted.

"Please. You think that, then you're seriously mistaken, _kid_. I'll bet I can whoop you a hundred ways to the next _decade_, so how's about curbing that little attitude of yours and getting out of my way? Because, y'know, if you don't back down, you have not seen how I am when I get _really_ ticked."

I arched my eyebrow, huffed, and reached up for his helmet to tear it from his head. I got it clear, and a smirk crossed my face.

"That'll teach you to—what the frack?!" The reason behind my sudden exclamation? I'd just seen a woman's face behind the visor.

Yep, you heard me right. _A woman_. As in female. As in the opposite of male. As in the same as I was . . . except different. Okay, needless to say, I stared, and I stared _hard_. For a while there, I questioned my sanity, wondering if a few neurons had failed to make their proper connections and I'd missed the event. Boba had excitedly mentioned finding a girl trooper once, but I'd never ever thought . . . Anyway, as I stood there staring with my eyeballs bulging out of my skull, the _female_ ARC snatched her helmet from my hands, her dark brown eyes flashing with anger and what seemed to be annoyance. For all I knew, it could've been some unexplainable lust to beat me into a pulp.

"_You_, kid, are more trouble than you seem! _And_ I'm already twirked off because I'm supremely late for my melee lesson, so if you _don't mind_ . . ."

With a snarl, she slammed her helmet back onto her head and stormed off down the hall, swearing under her breath as I stood there in shock. Okay, now I was _really_ beginning to suspect Taun We. I tell you, that fish-face had a few secrets tucked up inside her skintight sleeves! When I finally came to, so to speak, I dashed after this female ARC, eventually catching up to her, grabbing her by the shoulder plate, and spinning her around.

"Ooh, you are _not_ getting away that easy!" I barked. "I think I'm owed a bit of an explanation here! And I'd _better_ be more trouble than I seem! That means Jango's been doing his job."

I reached up and snapped her helmet off again, this time tucking it under my arm so she couldn't have it. I rested my weight on one hip and looked her over.

"Yeah, it's explanation time, so start talkin'!"

Her eyes flashed in such a way that warned me I'd be seriously in for it if I kept at her the way I was. Yeah, if I didn't stand down, I'd probably be turned into Fett mush. Frankly, I wanted to stay alive long enough to see whatever new weapons and kit _Jang'buir_ would bring back this time. Heck, I just wanted to stay alive! But I wouldn't have minded fighting an ARC just to see if they were as tough as folks claimed.

"Look, kid," the ARC said, her eyes still glaring hard at me, "I don't owe you one damned thing. You should consider yourself lucky because normally I kick the _shebs_ of anyone who figures this"—she jabbed a thumb at her face—"out. That's how I got my name: Stick. Now back off!"

"Oh, I ain't backin' off!" I retorted, crossing my arms and snorting. "You wanna throw the first punch, then you go right ahead! Otherwise, you come right out with it and explain to me just how you're a girl _and_ in ARC training!"

Stick rolled her eyes at me.

"I'm a girl 'cause I was _born_ that way. I ain't just any other clone that leaps outta the pod, all right?!"

"I can _see_ that," I scoffed. "Explain the training!"

"I'm in the ARC corps because I'm just not like the others!" she growled. "Happy now?!"

"Uh, no? You're gonna have to give a better explanation if you want me to shut up and forget this meeting ever happened. Because, if you haven't looked around, this is a cloning facility. Therefore, you should be a _boy_."

I tilted my head, still clutching her navy and black-tinted helmet. My eyes narrowed as I shot yet another glare at her. Hey eyes narrowed also as she grabbed my arm and dragged me down the hall. I started to wonder if I was being taken for an execution of sorts, but she turned and frowned at me when we reached a barracks door.

"All right, these are my barracks. We were too public out there; this is more private. And here I shall gab every _shabla_ detail of my _shabla_ life. Will _that_ get you to leave me alone?!"

I smirked at her frustration, using that icy tone and roguish grin I'd picked up from _Jang'buir_.

"Possibly."

She dragged me into the mercifully empty barracks and shoved me onto one of the bunks rather roughly and unceremoniously. She skulked across the room to her own bunk and plopped down, crossing her arms.

"Okay, so, fine," she said. "Ask away. No one'll bother us here, and I just _love_ interrogations."

"Good," I nodded. "Now, I want to know just how you ended up with a different chromosome than everyone else in this kriffin' place. Not like I'm ungrateful for no longer being the only human female for parsecs around . . . I just want to know what the fierfek happened. What are ya? Some sort of experiment?"

Stick's eyes flashed, and I knew I'd touched a nerve. Her hand started going for the sword strapped across her backplate, but she seemed to stop herself just before yanking it free of its sheath and thrusting the blade's point at my throat. With a sigh, she leaned back and crossed her arm, anger still blazing in her eyes as she scowled.

"Yeah . . . you could put it that way."

My gaze had followed her hand toward her blade's hilt, and I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, go ahead and draw," I smirked. "I can honestly say I'm not scared of you." That was one of the stupidest things I'd said, but I didn't care. I didn't even notice that her eyes got angrier each time I opened my mouth. "Okay, so those _kaminii_ decided to test a fem on the battlefield. They must've seen me and gotten curious."

"_Sure_ they did," Stick snorted. "And while we're at it, why don't ya go ask Taun We about _yourself_? Maybe you're a clone factory freak, too."

Now it was my turn to be ticked. I stiffened as she sat back with a triumphant smirk, and I let my fists clench as I narrowed my eyes into little slits.

"Don't you _dare_ talk like that," I snarled. "For your information, 'Stick,' I was _abandoned_ eleven years ago next week by my mother at Jango's front door! He raised me like his own kid, to fight, and that is _precisely_ why I'm not afraid of you!"

"Well, whoop-de-do for you," Stick mocked, rolling her eyes. "I ain't scared of you, either. I got over my fears a long time ago."

"That's just fine and dandy," I retorted. "So, if I were to put a crack in your bones, you wouldn't mind."

Mind, probably not. Fight back . . . definitely. She rapped a gauntleted fist on her chestplate and smirked knowingly.

"Like you could through _this_. Toughest stuff in the galaxy right here, this. Blast at it all day, and I'd never feel a thing."

I studied the armor for a minute, nodding slowly. Even more slowly, I shifted my weight on the bunk, getting set up for a run across the room. It was Katarn armor, I knew that much. I could recognize that stuff anywhere since that was what all the ARCs and commandos used. The stuff could withstand being landed on by a gunship. Of course, even the toughest armor has weaknesses, right? Right. So I, whether out of stupidity or lust for a good fight, lunged across the room and grabbed her chestplate, snapping it out from where it interlocked with the rest of her armor. I pulled it away and looked it over with a false air of disappointment.

"Oh, that's too bad," I sighed. "They need to work on this so you can't pop it open like a can of seltzer."

Well, that did it. Stick's hand flew to her sword, armored fingers wrapped securely around its hilt. The next second, the gleaming point was at my throat, and for a moment, I had a flashback to my first bounty. Then I looked up and locked eyes with her and saw the unquenchable fire raging in them. She snarled at me, eyes narrowing.

"That's why I get trained to do this," was all she said.

My eyes flashed with fury, yet I somehow managed to keep my gaze level and my face expressionless.

"You slit my throat, and this entire place will be on your back. Ever run into a _real_ Fett?" I meant _Jang'buir_ of course, but I doubted he was even back from his job. If he was, he probably wouldn't come knocking on every ARC's door trying to find me. Even if he did, he'd probably just let me duke it out myself. "Don't hope to!"

I brought my fists up, one jarring her arm enough to knock her sword loose from her grip and the other aiming to connect with her mouth. Well, she lost her hold on her sword, which saved my throat from a messy mutilation, but her head followed the blade fast enough that she dodged my punch. She slammed her elbows down into my shoulders, and I went down into a crouch before leaping up and spinning around, bringing the heel of my boot up into the unprotected center of her chest. I dropped to the ground and rolled across the floor, coming up into another crouch by the bunks. Stick went sprawling back across the floor, the wind knocked right out of her. I allowed myself a smirk of satisfaction as I watched her struggle for air, but after a few moments, she strained her arm out for her sword. She just barely touched it with her fingertips, and I knew that as soon as she got the chance, she'd grab it and maybe even run me through.

Despite my normally very good common sense, I must've been a bit _jare'la_—suicidal—because I lunged across the room for her, my hands prepping to either grab her throat or twist her arms behind her back. I didn't get a chance for either, because she rolled up into a bunch, her knees tucked into her chest. As I came running at her, she lashed out with her feet, kicking me squarely in the ol' solar plexus before she reached out and laid hold of her sword. Okay, okay, I know that was stupid to run her. Running people is _always_ stupid, even if they're not an ARC! Anyway, I skittered backwards across the highly polished floor, gasping for air. I felt like either my head or my lungs were going to explode from lack of oxygen. After a few moments, I drew a deep gasp of air, clearing the fog out of my brain as I shot her an icy glare. I flicked my wrist, and my knife dropped from my sleeve as I scrambled to my feet.

"Oh, you're gonna play it that way, huh?" I said, a bit breathless, as I nodded to her tightly clutched sword.

Then I did something even more stupid than anything I'd done before. I ran her with my knife. _Big_ mistake. Why? Well, she lifted her blade, waiting for me, and when I was in range, out shot her armored fist right into my chin. It split a wide gash in my bottom lip and part of my actual chin, and she grabbed my knife wrist and twisted. Hard.

"Kid, you just don't run at people," she chided. "Honestly."

I gasped in pain as the knife clattered from my hand onto the sterile white barracks floor. I locked my narrowed eyes onto her face, panting heavily as the blood dribbled down my chin and onto the front of my tunic. I thought I'd say something relatively smart, so I tilted my head as I straightened.

"And you didn't tell me this sooner . . . why . . . ?"

At that, I brought my free fist—and therefore my knuckles—up under her nose, wrenching my wrist free of her vise-like grip. I thought I was doing pretty well . . . except, well . . . she saw me coming. She let her sword fall from her hands as she grabbed my wrists, holding me still long enough to smack me with one heck of a head-butt. As I slid across the floor, clutching my forehead, she sighed and stooped to retrieve her sword.

"It's only because you didn't ask for a training session first, punk."

Punk? Okay, that was making me mad. Wait, scratch that. It was more than mad . . . That was personal. She dropped into a low stance, ready to fight more, but I couldn't. I lay there on the barracks floor, stunned and trying to shake off the hard blow. Thing was, that was easier said than done. My head was literally spinning, and though I wanted to make another lunge for her throat, I neither could nor did. I sighed heavily, having learned my lesson never to tangle with an ARC—especially female ones in navy and black armor—and just then, the barracks door hissed open. Somebody must've heard the commotion, because none other than Skirata raced in to see what was going on. And as if _that_ wasn't bad enough, guess who ran in after him? Yep—_Jang'buir_. He was still in full armor, lacking only his helmet, and boy, did he look twirked. I groaned in embarrassment and pain as I looked up at the two of them and saw duplicates through my swirly vision. Let's face it, folks. I'd just had my _shebs_ kicked by an ARC trainee and then had witnesses to my lying prone on the barracks floor, blood dripping from my chin onto the pristine white tiles. Skirata's hands went right to his hips as he leveled a glare at Stick.

"Stick, just _what_ are you doing?" he questioned.

_Jang'buir_'s face went into a deeper-than-usual scowl as he glared down at me, and I knew I'd shamed him. I squeezed my eyes shut with a heavy sigh.

"_Ro'ika_, fighting an ARC?" he said, almost in disbelief. "How _jare'la_ can you get?!"

My choice of words exactly. I rolled my eyes and sighed again, trying to ignore the burning flush of embarrassment in my cheeks. I glanced up and noticed that Stick was very cautiously backing away from me, looking a bit guiltily at Skirata.

"Sorry, _Kal'buir_," she sighed. "She set me off. Big time."

I managed to push myself off the ground, still wheezing from the boot kick to my gut. I wiped the blood off my mouth onto the sleeve of my tunic, making a mental note to send it off for cleaning later. Straightening, I squared my shoulders as Skirata looked over at me.

"He's right," he said, referring back to what _Jang'buir_ had said about my suicidal inclinations. "That was incredibly stupid. You know Stick's an ARC and the best one in her group."

"I do now," I muttered, crossing the room to the door and shooting a nasty glare at Stick. "I refuse to surrender."

I expected her to run me and pound me into the ground again, but she just stood there.

"Then I look forward to continuing this . . . discussion," she replied. "But later."

She returned her sword to its sheath and knocked her chestplate back into position as I walked to _Jang'buir_'s side. He reached out a hand, grabbing my shoulder and narrowing his eyes.

"You're giving me a bad name," he said in a low voice, "fighting with the troops."

"_N'eparavu takisit_, _Jang'buir_," I replied as humbly as I could. I was in enough trouble as it was by fighting with Stick. Getting him mad at me was the last thing I needed, so I apologized—literally ate my insult. Ever heard a phrase similar to that? "You're gonna eat those words" or some such? Well, that was the personal version in Mando'a.

Anyway, I shuffled from the barracks, still mopping the blood up on my sleeve. I didn't hear much as I walked away, but I did hear Skirata murmur to _Jang'buir_, "That one's gettin' mouthy." Yep, he meant me. So I was living up to my name just a little bitty bit, what with being something of a scoundrel and all. Of course, it was a bad idea to have my first _real_ fight being against an ARC trainee. As I walked back to our barracks, I heard Stick laughingly mention giving me a real hiding if we ever fought again and I couldn't help but grimace. As if she hadn't whooped my _shebs_ enough for one day. Thankfully, she didn't come after me that day, so I was free to gingerly doctor my torn lip and chin with an eyedropper of bacta as Boba leaned curiously over me, somehow very intrigued by the sight of blood seeping from his big sister.

I swear, there are just some times I could kill the little pest for his nosy interest in me. He pestered _Jang'buir_ for a full hour before he was finally told the story of my defeat at the hands of the female ARC, and he leaned over to me and smirked.

"See? I _told_ you there was a girl in the troops," was all he said to me as I cleaned myself up. He said it with such a smug, know-it-all grin that I could've slapped it right off his face.

Watch out, you rodent. I'm in something of a killing mood.


	11. Supper Time

**Chapter Eleven – Supper Time**

Apparently, my little rumble with Stick made more than a ripple in the pond. It made a full-blown typhoon. The troops were talking about it for weeks, some siding with Stick and some with me. It was like the army was split right up the middle on which female could kick bigger butt. Oh, I was certain Stick could. She'd been training for it harder and maybe longer than I had. She was a trained soldier and the killer I could never be despite my future in bounty hunting. Okay, so maybe I'm being super nice to her. Do you blame me? After getting myself kicked around like I had, I was more than interested in being careful around her. That was why I either ate dinner back at the barracks with _Jang'buir_ and Boba or on the completely opposite end of the mess hall from her. Of course, one evening, I glanced across the way and saw her sitting there with a pair of ARC buddies and a squad of commandos-in-training. Now _that_ was a sight. ARCs eating with commandos? I hadn't expected to see that. But it looked like they were pretty good friends, since they weren't trying to tear each others' heads off. Besides, I recognized them. Every commando squad got a name, and that one was Delta. I'd been hearing some insanely good things about their training—not counting the time their demo man blew half the demolition training arena—and nearly himself—to the Outer Rim.

Of course, I recognized Stick's ARC pals, too. That's probably a little hard for you to believe, right? You're probably thinking, "Uh, they're all clones. How do they look different?" Well, I'll tell you. Even among thousands of clones, there are subtle differences in their physical traits. Each one has a slightly different way he carries himself, a different way he speaks, a faint change in accent . . . It has a lot to do with who trained them and how long they've been together. You see, just by looking at them, I could see Skirata in the Delta boys, so I knew he'd been the one who'd trained them. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Stick's ARC pals. Those two were Sigma-773—better known as Sevvie. He was a screwball if I ever saw one; about like Delta's demo man, actually. He was always making a wisecrack or just being crazy. The other was Theta-636—Chevron. (See, I knew their nicknames just from keeping my eyes and ears open and operative.) From what I'd seen, he was a leader in the making: steady, capable of thinking on his toes, only speaking when there was something to be said . . . He reminded me a lot of Delta's leader, a fellow we all called "Ace" back in the day. (Of course, Ace later came to be known as Boss, but that was because those of us who knew him as Ace were either scattered or dead. But for the sake of the story, I'll call him Ace.)

Anyway, I got so curious about them all eating together that one night I decided to dine in the mess hall. Being the daughter of the clone host, I had that privilege from time to time; besides, what Kaminoan is _really_ going to say "no" to a fully armed Mando woman? Probably the same ones who'd run up and pick a fight with me, but I hadn't had any do that since they all knew I carried knives. Well, instead of eating with the regular troopers as I did on occasion, I hauled my tray across the hall to the table where Stick and her friends were seated. I heard and felt the mess hall fall even quieter than usual as I passed among the troops, and I knew it was because I was in full armor (except the ol' _buy'ce_, of course) and was headed for the ARC with whom I'd had that one heck of a fist fight. As I approached the table, I caught a few fragments of their conversation, and I knew they were discussing me. The Delta known as Sev (sniper man; ooh, he had a fun job) was extremely interested in the details of the fight. I was surprised, actually; I'd thought that was old news by then. But then again, none of those guys got out much—ever, actually.

"Didn't the fem Fett even _try_ to put up a fight?!" Sev asked, and I rolled my eyes as I crossed toward them. "Bunch o' rumors going around . . . Most of 'em are saying she didn't even try to defend herself. Waste of a good last name."

I stiffened, wondering just how Mr. Sniper would enjoy facing off with me. He wouldn't get to use those fancy sights then, but I'd have my knife, and I'd have it at his throat in an instant. I refrained from slicing him into mincemeat, however, and lingered a while to hear what else was said. I knew the other troopers around me were getting nervous by my extended stay near their tables, but I didn't particularly care.

"Oh, she fought back," Stick admitted, but then a smirk crossed her face. "I just fought harder."

Harder, indeed. Absently, I reached up and touched the long, thin scar running from my lip diagonally across my chin. It was faint, but I knew it was there. Her armored fist had cut deeply enough to leave a permanent reminder of why one should _not_ fight an ARC while unarmed. Sev piped up with a new comment that would've gotten me riled if I'd been in the mood.

"It's because she was _di'kutla_ enough to fight an ARC . . . Isn't it, sir . . . ?"

He shot something of a teasing look at Ace, who reddened considerably. I wondered if he hadn't found himself on the receiving end of one of Stick's infamous beatings. Well, I wouldn't blame him for being uneasy at the memory. I still got a little dizzy whenever I thought about her forehead smacking into mine. Ace didn't answer; he just shrugged and turned back to his dinner.

"I think she'd have had a chance if she'd had the weapons and armor you do, Stick," he said finally.

Thank you for the vote of support! My, I do love a commando who will stand up for the clone host's daughter. Sev waved him off and leaned excitedly over to Stick again.

"Ever gonna fight her again, huh?" That was one bloodthirsty dude. Trust me on that! He used to keep track of his kills and go practically insane if ever he forgot.

"If she does," Chevron said, to my surprise, "I think I know who'd come out on top."

Needless to say, I was speechless, because I knew he meant me. If he'd meant Stick, he'd have cast a supportive glance in her direction. But no, he meant _me_. Two votes of support from guys I didn't even know! I must've done _something_ right! Of course, Sevvie followed up with a smarty comeback that made my face burn.

"It's only because you secretly crush on her despite never setting eyes on her."

Uh, what? Do you honestly mean to tell me that I had an ARC—an _ARC_, people!—crushing on me?! Okay, that was a little . . . strange. Yet even though Sevvie lightly prodded Chevron while grinning playfully, I couldn't help but notice the flush of embarrassment that washed over poor Chevron's face, and I felt more than a little sorry for him. Stick glanced over at her buddies before turning to answer Sev's question.

"If the chance presented itself, I could . . . but I _would_ give her every opportunity to walk away before the _real_ hiding came."

What's this? Stick plotting to show mercy to me? Well, now that was even more surprising than hearing Sevvie's little crack. I just about raced over and hugged her while squealing "Oh, _thank_ you for not planning to murder me in my sleep!" Of course, I realized how foolish that would be, so I held my tongue and stayed away, though I did inch somewhat closer to their table. Oh, yeah. I had to get in at this table. There was some mighty interesting conversation to be had, I was certain of it.

"She'd give you a run for your money," Ace interjected with a nod of deepest conviction. "She's lived and trained with Jango all her life, remember."

Oh, I liked this guy. Not only was he a good fighter (from what I'd seen of his sim work and his progress reports), but he was incredibly intelligent. So I ambled across the room, leaving the poor, nervous troopers behind me to inhale deeply with relief. Like I'd have hurt them, though. That'd be just _di'kutla_. Well, as I approached their table, all eyes turned and locked onto me. Smiling politely, I nodded to an empty spot next to the Delta demo man—nicknamed Scorch.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked calmly. I saw the look of apprehension come over Ace's face, so I quickly moved to abate his fears. "Oh, don't worry; I'll be civil."

I inadvertently glanced over to Stick, who promptly looked the other direction, obviously ignoring me. I knew she was just barely holding it together; that was all too clear from the way she went back to stabbing violently at her dinner. Sevvie leaned over to her and murmured something about avoiding food fights, to which she sighed an agreement. I quickly jumped in, explaining I wasn't up for them either and that I'd just come by because I'd heard such nice things from their progress reports. They all appeared somewhat grateful when I mentioned how well their training was coming; well, all except for Stick. After a couple of tense moments, Ace received nods from everyone, so Scorch slid over ever so slightly to give me a little more room as I sat down. I'd

hardly begun eating when I heard Sevvie gasp, "Chev, do _not_ tell me you actually—!" Chevron growled angrily and smacked him upside the head, and I glanced up quickly to find his eyes riveted on mine. I noticed he had eyes that were a lot gentler than most of the other troopers, but what startled me was how hard he was gazing at me. Frankly, it made me more than a little unnerved. I forced a smile and glanced down at my armor, pretending the color scheme was what he'd been staring at.

"Yes, it's a custom paint job," I said. Even as the words came out, I realized that they sounded oh-so-insanely stupid. _Kandosii_, Rogue. Yeah, yeah, note the ol' sarcasm, my second native language. "Thanks for noticing."

I turned back to my dinner before noticing that now I had _Scorch's_ eyes glued to me. Dammit, what is with these clones and staring at people?! But then I realized it was less at me and more at the grenades strung around my waist. Well, that'd explain it, what with his job being demolitions expert and all. He probably was one of the only people who had a true admiration for the finer things in life—a.k.a. blowing giant holes in things. I reached down and patted my grenades, smirking.

"Yeah, I carry full arsenal most days," I said. "Sorry to make you jealous."

"Oh, no, not jealous . . ." Scorch insisted despite the fact that I could see he was salivating. "It's just . . . mutual admiration for the things which go boom, you might say."

I snickered before tilting my head, studying each and every one of them and noting all the distinct differences in their basically alike faces. They all were so . . . so animated. So alive. They weren't anything like those cowardly troopers I'd caused to wet their pants as I passed through the mess hall. These guys were more human than anybody I'd ever met. And then there was Chevron. Those eyes of his . . . not exactly _different_, but they certainly were not the same as the others'. I wondered what made them like that and I found myself thinking I could really get to like those eyes. But quickly, I shook it off and glanced at them all again before speaking.

"I can't help but notice how you guys are so . . . alive. You're all so different from the others I've met . . . like you have real personalities. And that's really good to see."

I was _trying_ to be nice, and while the others took it in the spirit in which it was intended, Stick did not. Heh, it figured. I expected her to be sore after I came waltzing in there and taking over the dinner table conversation . . . or I wondered if she just did not like me for reasons I probably understood but didn't want to ponder. She growled under her breath and speared a piece of her dinner.

"Personalities, maybe," she muttered. "But you don't know them if it's your first time around here."

Ooh, the ice queen treatment, better known as the cold shoulder. I shrugged, trying to let it roll off my back.

"My first time on this half of the hall," I conceded. I think everybody could feel the tension in the air. "But . . . I wouldn't mind getting to know these personalities. I'm actually allowed to talk to the army if I like as long as I don't interfere with their training." I paused and glanced around. "And I'm not interfering, I hope . . . ?"

"Nah, not at all . . . Not unless interferin' with Chev's eyes counts!" Sevvie snickered.

I was understandably shocked when Chevron wheeled around and almost literally sank his claws into Sevvie's jugular.

"_I told you to can it!!_" he snarled.

Sevvie jumped back in surprise and fright as Chevron glared at him, and I couldn't help but stare slightly. Why ever was he getting so defensive, unless . . . ? I quickly shoved the thought from my head as Stick jumped in.

"Hey, hey, _udesii_!" she exclaimed. "Grife, Sevvie, lay off. If he wants to stare, let him stare."

I forced a chuckle and locked gazes with a rather flustered Chevron.

"Okay, so I'm probably pretty unique to look at. It's probably just a change of scenery." Chevron looked relieved and grateful, so I smiled as I continued. "Seriously, I don't mind the staring, okay? You all could stare at me all at once and I probably wouldn't mind. Just don't try it because I _might_ get a little spooked."

We shared a good laugh before turning back to our dinner for a few silent minutes. After a bit, Sev (not Sevvie, mind you) turned and caught a glimpse of the knife in my hip sheath. His eyes started gleaming with admiration for it, but he seemed to be surprised that it was there.

"You carry a knife?" he asked. "No guns?"

"Oh, I've got several," I shrugged. "Just have to keep 'em locked up when not in use."

He still seemed especially interested in my weaponry, so I obliged his curiosity by continuing.

"Y'see, I've got this one light repeater that I've had since I was a kid. It's a really sweet piece of kit for a newbie."

"Very sweet," Sevvie nodded in agreement. "Hard to find a good bit of kit, especially a repeater."

I murmured to indicate I agreed fully. I hadn't found a nicer light repeater in years. But what got my eyebrows shooting toward the ceiling was what Stick replied with.

"Of course it's hard to find one. It's been like that ever since that raid you and Scorch pulled."

My eyes widened as Sevvie chuckled and nodded mischievously, and I whipped around, staring at Scorch. His hands went up in defense of himself, looking quite nervous—and guilty, I might add. I'm sure he would've given anything to have had his helmet just then.

"Hey, that was necessary!" he insisted. "I needed the equipment!"

"Please, you did not," Sev replied with a sigh, jabbing him lightly in the arm with his elbow. "You just got a little weapon-hungry!"

"You . . . _raided_ the armory?" I gasped, trying to seem utterly shocked. I mean, it wasn't like I hadn't done the same, but I didn't want _them_ knowing that. I was one of the reasons you couldn't find a good repeater on Kamino. Whoops. "Whatever made you pull a crazy stunt like that?!"

"_That_ was Sevvie," Scorch smirked, nodding across the table. "He is _good_ at that stuff."

Sevvie chuckled and rubbed his knuckles against his chestplate in something of an "I am _smokin_'" gesture, smirking devilishly at me.

"I cracked the security codes before I got switched up," he said. "Then when the opportunity presented itself, I used them to my—and Scorch's—advantage."

"Sure wish I could've been there," I replied, shaking my head. "You say nobody caught you? Where was I when this happened? If I could've been in on that caper . . . I haven't had a decent upgrade for my rifle in . . . well, _months_."

Sev stared at me and shook his head in disbelief that I hadn't upgraded in a while, muttering something that sounded to me like "Sacrilege!" before he turned back to his dinner. I scoffed in agreement and shrugged before glancing up at an icy-eyed Stick.

"Still mad at me, huh?" Oh, I knew she was. And I wondered if that question wasn't about to get my butt kicked again.

Nothing happened; she just shrugged slightly.

"I'm managing."

"Yeah, sure ya are," Sevvie chuckled, leaning across the table to me. "'Managing' means she's probably planning it all out right now."

"Shuddup, Sevvie," Stick growled, shooting him a rather nasty glare.

"Okay, okay, I don't blame you," I said, accepting verbal defeat in an attempt to keep the peace at the dinner table. The last thing I needed was the mush they fed these guys ending up lodged in my armor for the next six months.

"Just watch her, Stick," Scorch warned. Well, well. It looked like yet another of these fellows was joining my side. "She has some _nice_ grenades."

"Those old things?" I laughed. The next words that came out my mouth only further incriminated me as a kit thief. "They're just a few flash-bangs I swiped off a passing demo trainee. He didn't need them anyway."

Rule number one hundred-thirty-two: never admit to stealing from other trainees. You might just end up confessing to the one you stole from, which, of course, I did. I knew I'd blown it as soon as Scorch's eyes went wide and he stared at me accusingly.

"Hey!" he screeched. "_Those_ would be _mine_!"

Whoops. Now I was _really_ in for it. Luckily, they didn't know I'd been on those few armory raids I mentioned before. My face went really red as I looked away, quite embarrassed, as they all turned on me—Scorch especially. Ace quickly cautioned him not to fight over grenades at the table, which got a loud protest from him. And if _that_ wasn't bad enough, Stick's eyes widened to saucer size.

"You _stole_ grenades?!" she spat. "You don't _steal_ grenades around here! Either you ask or you get 'em already. You don't go swipin' 'em off other trainees!"

Okay, I'll admit, she was right. But I didn't say so because something she'd said stuck in my head: _other trainees_. She'd just referred to me as I was one of them, as if I'd lived and trained with them all my life! It gave me something of a warm, cozy feeling, because I hoped that meant she wasn't viewing me as the stuck up, bratty daughter of the clone host as much anymore. But I quickly came back with a retort about knowing that Scorch had swiped grenades _and_ a rifle during his armory raid, which silenced them long enough to allow me to unfasten the string of flash-bangs from my belt. I gathered them up and pressed them into Scorch's hands. He accepted them gratefully, cradling them to his chest before tying them into the safety pouches on his own belt.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "Just don't do it again, okay?"

"Hey, no problem," I replied. "I'll just make my own."

Sevvie stared, wondering just how it was that I made my own, but Stick hushed him by informing him that all her time at the construction benches was spent in building her own grenades, as well. Dinner resumed peacefully, but I looked up at Chevron and gave an apologetic smile.

"Sorry you had to learn I'm something of a thief," I said. "Not exactly lady-like."

Down the table, Sev muttered, "But very Fett-like." Needless to say, that touched a nerve, so I leaned forward and looked past Scorch to him.

"Excuse me?" I said, my eyes narrowing.

"Nothin'!"

"Oh, yeah? Look, _vod_, you just insulted my name. You all were born Mandalorian; you should know that insulting a Mando's honor is the _last_ thing you do!"

I leveled him with one of those Fett glares I'd learned from _Jang'buir_, and he backed down. Stick jumped in quickly to remind us we'd sworn not to fight at the table, and Chevron promptly reminded her that we'd promised not to fight over _grenades_. Thank you, Chev. I appreciate the assist. Now let me tear Sev's head from the rest of him.

Anyway, as Stick mentioned her desire to keep the peace (which I found odd, considering she'd turn me into little bitty Fett bites any day of the week), the fourth Delta—Fixer—finally spoke up. I wondered why he'd been so silent the entire meal, but he glanced down to me as he spoke.

"Yes, please. I'd like to eat my dinner in peace—no matter how tasteless it is." Well, he was right on that account. It was nauseatingly bland. However they expected these guys to become big, strong clone soldiers while eating _that_ stuff, I had no idea.

"Fine, fine," Sev sighed. "I was just backing off anyway."

Oh, _sure_ you were. You were probably on your way out the door for one of your fancy sniper sights. Ace shot Sev a grateful nod for the surrender before he looked to me and gave me an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about these guys. I don't know what's made 'em so testy."

"It's probably me," I confessed. "I guess I came waltzing in and said a few things I shouldn't have." I lifted my now-empty tray from the table and stood, looking them over for another minute. "I'll leave you be now."

I turned and left, though I heard Stick mutter "Good riddance" to my back. Somehow, that was like a flaming dagger in my stomach. Apparently, my first attempt at making friends with those guys had _not_ gone over well. Or maybe it had. The whole way out the door, I kept feeling Chevron's eyes absolutely riveted on me. It gave me something of an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my gut, but I tried to ignore it. Thankfully, I completely missed Sevvie's rousing rendition of "Chev and Rogue, sitting on an aiwha, k-i-s-s-i-n-g." (I only knew about it because Ace so kindly informed me of it later. Okay, Sevvie, you're on the list beneath The Rodent and the _other_ Sev. Watch your back.)

I wandered back to the barracks to find _Jang'buir_ and Boba curled up on their respective bunks, catching an after-dinner snooze. Quietly, I slipped in, grabbed a rifle, and hauled it back out across the compound to the firing ranges. If there was one that was currently not in use, I could actually take it for a bit of target practice. But how often and when I could have those practice sessions depended greatly on how much training was taking place. Since it was immediately after dinner, most troopers were either still finishing up in the mess hall or heading back to their barracks. They got about an hour or two after dinner to relax and let their food digest. Then they'd have another couple of training sessions, perhaps a sim run or two, and then it'd be lights out in the barracks. I'd lived among them for so long that I practically lived by their schedule, and that was precisely why I knew I could have a while in a firing range.

Anyway, I got down there, signed myself in, and set up a few dozen targets before crouching down at the opposite end of the range. It was just like the night _Jang'buir_ had come back and informed me we were moving to Kamino all those years before, for I was using my sniper attachment. But it was different in that I was using the target practice to work off some frustrations. _Blam!_ That one was Boba in retaliation for all the times he'd been an annoying little snot to me. _Blam!_ That was Sev for trying to get on my bad side and for insulting the Fett name. (Now I'll have you know that I never actually would shoot those guys. Like I'd kill my brother or a perfectly good commando!) _Blam!_ The third target was for Sevvie's cracking jokes about Chevron's gazing at me. The fourth target I put a blazing hole through was essentially putting a hole through the irritation Stick had caused me, too. Each shot made me feel better, for I knew that not only was I dealing with the frustration here and now, but I was getting it out of my system before I had a chance to attack and kill the lot of them, which—trust me—would have been a very bad thing. And messy.

As I sat there picking off targets from the far end of the hall, I couldn't help but think. Just _why_ had Chevron been staring at me? Had Sevvie been right in diagnosing it as a crush? It was slightly odd to think about, but then again, it wasn't really. I'd just never heard of an ARC having a crush before, but let's face it. Back then, no one even knew what an ARC was. (This was way before the war with the Separatists, mind you!) I'd just gotten to the point in my thinking where I had begun wondering if it was so wrong for him to feel like that, but by then, I'd run flat out of targets. So, heaving a sigh, I shouldered my rifle and signed out of the firing range. I ambled back down the hall, crept in on a still-sleeping _Jang'buir_ and Boba, returned my rifle, and started back out again. I wandered back in the direction of the mess hall, and it was then that I crossed paths with the Delta boys. When we caught each others' gazes, I stopped and tossed them a quick two-fingered salute before crossing my arms and leaning back against a wall.

"Guess I got out of there in time, huh?" I said. "Did Stick blow up?"

Heh, that was a funny mental image: a twig off a tree spontaneously combusting. I didn't mention it, however, since I knew these guys probably had never seen a tree before despite being extremely intelligent, so they wouldn't have gotten it anyway.

"Eh, not really," Ace shrugged in response to my question. "She was about to, though."

I nodded in understanding. Yeah, she was just barely holding it together. If I hadn't left as soon as I did, she probably would've flown across the table and knocked me into the middle of the next week for no reason other than her fiery temper and irritation with me. I mean, let's face it. I had an undeniable knack for twirking her off. I was about to start off down the hall again when Sev called out to me.

"But that wasn't even the best part!" he said. "The _good_ part was when Chev—"

When Chev _what_? I was about to ask that very question, but Scorch and Fixer thankfully clamped their hands over Sev's mouth. I watched in amusement as Fixer hefted Sev's rifle from his back and held it for a moment as Scorch gave him a reprimand.

"_Fierfek_, quit being so crude, will ya?!" he said, sounding very exasperated. "Just go shoot some targets, okay?"

At this, Fixer shoved Sev's rifle into Sev's hands, and he was shoved off down the hallway to the firing ranges despite his loud—but ignored—protests. I tilted my head as I looked back at Ace.

"There somethin' I need to know?"

"Other than Sev being absolutely _di'kutla_?" Ace replied with a chuckle. "Not a thing."

"Something tells me that's . . . typical," I muttered. That evoked a snicker from Scorch, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about, and I grinned.

Again, I was about to bid them goodbye and leave, but it was at that moment that Stick et all came out of the mess hall. My gaze locked with Chevron's again—curse those very nice brown eyes of his!—and he came to a grinding halt when he saw me. Sevvie walked into his back, and Stick gave a low whistle of amusement as she crossed her arms and looked me over.

"Uh oh," she said. "Looks like lover-boy just spotted his target."


	12. Inverted V's

**Chapter Twelve – Inverted Vs**

Well, okay, so I got a little nervous. "Lover-boy"? Part of me was hoping it wasn't true, but the other part . . . So I was lonely, okay?! And Chevron was handsome—maybe even more handsome than the others, I dunno! Remember what I said about there being physical difference even among clones? Besides, what right-minded girl will be able to resist such beautiful eyes? Ahem. Moving on.

"I say we let 'em alone," Sevvie nodded, looking around Chevron to me.

"You do, and I'll make _sure_ your sim runs're bad," Chevron said, turning and shooting Sevvie a glare.

"And I'll whoop you if you do," Stick laughed, sticking her tongue out slightly. She gave him a shove in my direction. "Go on! We'll see you later!"

She and Sevvie ambled off, smirking to themselves, and I felt my face flush. They were unnecessarily torturing poor Chevron. Couldn't they see the look of absolute bewilderment that crossed his face?! He couldn't possibly understand what he was feeling; I knew I couldn't. Wait. That came out wrong. Oh, what the heck; it doesn't matter. Moving along . . . I felt so sorry for him that I walked forward and called out to Stick.

"Stick, I think you should apologize to him. You're being hurtful!"

"I'm not sure you should've done that," Ace murmured.

"Why?!" I asked. "She's embarrassing him!"

"And you probably made her mad. She doesn't apologize as easily as she gets angry."

"He'd know, poor guy," Scorch added. "He accidentally ticked her off one day and got pummeled."

"I think I can handle her," I replied, shrugging them off. "She just needs to quit frustrating Chevron!"

Yes, she did, quite frankly. Oh, the look on Chevron's face . . . It made me just want to hug him and say "There, there." He was flustered, he was confused, and he was more than a little unsure of himself. I'm sure he felt just like he was the only person in the galaxy because it seemed to me that he felt as though he was a mile tall and everyone was staring at him. I moved a step or two closer to him as Stick turned slowly around. I could tell she was two seconds away from whipping out her sword, so I realized I needed to be careful.

"If you ain't noticed it already, Rogue," she said, "he's taken something of a fancy to you. I was just suggesting that we let you and him talk. I am _trying_ to be nice here! I'm sarcastic by nature . . . if you didn't notice."

Okay, so she had a point there. But I had one, too, and it was that by pushing him toward me, she'd gotten him so off his feet that he looked like a poor, helpless puppy with those big brown eyes of his (which I still thought were quite nice, by the way). All right, so I didn't exactly blame him for liking me. I supposed I could like him, too, if there was any way it wouldn't be against regulations—which I knew it would be. But there was just something different about him that made him stand out like a gleaming lighthouse from the others. I stepped up to his side and—albeit a bit hesitantly—reached up to rest my hand on his shoulder.

"That may be," I answered, "but I heard how you all were teasing him. Listen, Stick, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. Trust me, that'd be the _last_ thing I'd want to do. Just . . . you might need to lay off a little."

"Um, not as an insult or anything . . ." Scorch piped up. "But you two _do_ look kind of cute together."

Ace elbowed Scorch in the gut, getting a faint wheeze from him. I felt Chevron flinch, but his gaze was unwavering. He kept watching me, probably hoping I'd make a grand ultimatum to save his hide. Stick watched for a moment, as if she was watching her little boy go or some such. I noticed that she clamped her hand across Sevvie's mouth when he piped up to say something.

"I—I . . . uhh . . ." Poor Chevron. That was all he could say as a blush swept over his olive skin. I just squeezed his shoulder.

Sevvie started sniggering, and Stick dragged him into an adjoining hallway, annoyance written all over her face. There were a few sounds similar to armor smacking against armor, so I figured she was knocking him around as a mere sampling of what would happen to him if he kept giggling every time Chevron looked in my direction. After that, I actually felt a little guilty for jumping down her throat about the teasing. She _had_ been nice, after all. I looked up at Chevron, smiling slightly.

"Hope she didn't insult you too badly," I said, and he grinned. I glanced around to see that the hallway we were in had emptied completely; the others Deltas had skipped town on us, and Stick and Sevvie hadn't come back despite the smacking sounds' ceasing. Though I sighed, my grin got a little wider. "You get the feeling we've been abandoned?"

"Mm-hmm," he replied, a man for few words, especially at that moment. The way his eyes flicked around the pristine halls showed me clearly just how out of his territory he felt.

"If it makes you feel any better," I said, "I'm just as freaked out as you are. Though I _am_ glad I didn't have to fight Stick again . . . That might've gotten messy."

I cracked another grin as he actually chuckled in genuine amusement.

"I'm just glad she didn't blow her top," he added. "Sometimes her temper gets a little bit . . . over the top."

"Oh, you're telling me!" I exclaimed. "I had that sword of hers at my throat once, though I'm pretty darn sure you've heard about that a hundred times. It wasn't a fun end of the blade to be on, believe me." I cast a side-glance of sorts at him. "Uh, not to embarrass you or anything, but . . . you _are_ a pretty nice guy to be around. I'd rather spend a year trapped in a turbolift with you than with my little brother. He is so darn annoying . . . absolutely frustrating."

I rolled my eyes and sighed as he nodded in agreement and understanding. Something way deep down inside me was actually grateful that we'd been so conveniently left alone in that hall. Here I was having a nice, civil chat with a very decent young man; I can't say I'd ever had one of those in a while—civil chats, I mean! Get that mind out of the gutter, okay?! Anyway . . .

"Kinda like Sevvie," Chevron said thoughtfully. "Except he's got this weird thing he does . . . During meal times, he's like you saw him, but outside . . . he's as thickheaded and regulations-minded as the Kaminoans, obviously! Gets annoying. I try to get him to be _normal_, but he's adamant."

"Yep, just about," I chuckled. "Well, I guess there's one everywhere. And you wouldn't believe that when I was younger, I actually _wanted_ a younger brother. At least now that I have one, I have the power to beat the _osik_ out of him!"

"Well, there're times I'd like to bloody up Sevvie, but he's my _vod_, after all, so Stick does most of the roughhousing."

I nodded in understanding, but at that moment, none other than Sev stuck his head around the corner, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Either he'd taken the long route to and from the firing range or . . . he'd never gone at all. He must've been hanging around in a corner somewhere . . . Gr.

"Any kissin' yet?" he snickered. Frack, he was just as irritating as his similarly-named counterpart, and I could literally kill both of them.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I inhaled sharply and clenched my fists. He was all of two seconds from getting a mouthful of my gauntlet—since I _was_ still in my armor. Oh, the power. I turned slowly, readying myself to do one heck of a pounding on him, when an orange-colored gauntlet shot out and grabbed Sev by his backplate. Ace to the rescue!

Chev grabbed my hand and led me off down the hall, saying something about finding someplace a little more private to talk. I felt my skin prickle when our gauntlets met even though there was no skin contact. Was it so wrong to be holding his hand? I didn't think so, because it certainly didn't feel like it. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

We hurried off down the corridors until we found an empty, darkened one almost at the other end of the compound. It was dark because we had come nearly to the labs and the technicians were gone for the night. They didn't need to stick around as much anymore to monitor what remote-control cams could. In fact, that was the first thing we looked for. We looked around until we found the controls for the cameras in the hall, where we switched them off. I certainly didn't want anybody knowing I had run off for a private conversation with a certain ARC trainee, and I was sure he didn't want anyone other than Stick—and maybe Sevvie—to know he'd been talking to me. Talking with me was bound to raise a few eyebrows and crop up a few rumors and suspicions, which would be a very large mess.

Anyway, once all the cameras were down (we were intending to reboot them later after our conversation was finished), I glanced back down the incredibly long hallway we'd come through and sighed.

"I swear, I could just kill him," I said, referring to Sev, and I meant it, too. I sighed and looked up at Chevron. "The next time I'm in the firing range, I just might pretend that every target is him. And I thought Stick was bad . . . Guess I owe her a bit of an apology."

"She'll be shocked right out of her boots," Chevron informed me. "You'd be surprised how much she puts out she doesn't like you, but the way she goes on about how well you fought . . . Said she hadn't gotten the chance to fight like that in a while."

"No kidding?" Huh. That really got me between the eyes. I wondered if maybe, just _maybe_, Stick and I could actually be friends. I mean, we weren't all that different. She was just more strongly willed than I. "Well, she wasn't so bad herself. In fact, I got practically pummeled. I'll tell you, having a pair of ARC boots making contact with your unprotected stomach is no picnic. But I guess I had it coming."

I smiled sheepishly, remembering fully how I'd prodded and provoked her into bringing that sword point up against my throat. Chevron murmured something of an agreement as he turned and looked into my eyes for a bit. I couldn't help but look back and noticed how . . . how _subdued_ his were in reference to Stick's. It was as if he'd resigned himself to knowing that he would be a soldier all his life and maybe die someday soon while Stick was fighting for something more. (He told me later that he'd seen something similar in my eyes, except he saw fire. He said it was as if Stick's fire was only half-tamed while I was completely free from everything that held him back: the genetic tampering, the growth acceleration . . . He said it was if I held this unshakeable knowledge that I wasn't doomed to die young and obedient.)

I let my eyes dart back and forth across his face for a few moments. His features were strong, masculine . . . Not all that different from _Jang'buir_'s, except Chevron's face was younger and kinder, and there were just a few changes. But from where I was standing, I didn't care that he looked essentially the same as everyone else in the compound. He was _different_. He was special; destined for higher things, I hoped.

We didn't say anything, because he took a hesitant step toward me and gently touched my face, as if curiosity had nagged at him long enough. I hadn't been intending for them to, but my eyes closed as his fingertips brushed my jaw. What happened next was something I hadn't really been expecting. He leaned over me and softly, carefully—as if he was totally unsure of himself—kissed me. I swear, if what flooded my heart at that moment was flooding his, then we both would have spontaneously combusted into very large flames. It was my first kiss, and from such an unlikely source, too. That was what startled me. I hadn't meant to stiffen, nor had I meant to relax and kiss him back. Something went off in my head, almost telling me we were moving too fast, but I shoved that stupid little voice out of my head as I pulled away, looking up at him with surprise. Yet . . . I was pleased. It's a conflict, I know.

"Chev, I . . . I don't know what to say." But I knew I probably should've kept my mouth shut.

"You . . . you don't have to. I mean, uh . . ." He chewed at his bottom lip, falling silent. Poor guy. He was at a complete loss for words.

I took a deep breath and put my hand on his shoulder. Let me tell you, what I was feeling was unlike anything else. It was this . . . this fire. So unfamiliar, yet so natural, so I was understandably as bewildered as he.

"Don't worry, please," I whispered, noticing how very un-Fett-like I sounded. I took another breath. "No one will have to know about . . . about us."

"About us"? That sounded like we'd just started something down in that quiet, dark, cam-free corridor. To be truthful . . . I think we had. (I know most of you are absolutely freaking out over a romance between us, but shh. It felt _right_, and I actually saw happiness in his eyes.) He looked at me, tilting his head slightly as he laid his own hand on my shoulder.

"If you know what you're doing . . ." he said in a breathless, hushed tone, "then I trust you."

I sighed, grateful for his trust but feeling very inferior and completely stupid.

"I don't know anything," I admitted. "I'm just as confused as you. But I _do_ know how to stay silent, how to keep things under wraps . . . Just . . . just keep yourself alive, and maybe . . . maybe after a while . . ."

I trailed off, glancing down the corridor to ensure that we were still alone. Nobody was coming; it was dead as a tomb in there. When I turned back, Chevron warmly embraced me, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, our armor lightly clacking together.

"So . . . if we go through with this," he said slowly, "then you don't care that I'll probably die twice as soon as you ever could? Or that . . . I may be gone so long . . ."

I shook my head and nestled into his arms, closing my eyes again. Even with my eyes shut, I found and traced the series of inverted Vs that trailed down the front of his chestplate. There were three: one to represent himself, one to represent Stick, and one to represent Sevvie. I wondered if, now that all this was happening, there'd be a fourth to represent me as the newest member of his family. Frankly, I was worried that this was really moving too fast; I mean, we'd only officially met that day. But something clicked for us, I think. Besides, from the way he couldn't keep his eyes off me, I knew he was looking at something more than just my armor's paint scheme.

"No," I replied, answering his question. "I don't care. And I'd wait for you to come back."

"Shh," he said gently, pressing his fingers to my lips. I looked up at him, seeing almost only the outline of his face in the darkness. "Then we shall be lovers . . . _cyar'ika_. I shall always think of you, no matter how far away I am. And I will come to you, time and again. I swear . . . _Haat_, _ijaa_, _haa'it_."

"Truth, honor, vision." That was the solemnest vow he could make to me. It was one that no honorable Mandalorian would ever break as long as he lived, and I knew Chev was honorable. I will admit that it gave me a rushing feeling of nervous excitement to know that we were going to have this secret love, even if it didn't last for very long. But he'd sworn on it. It'd last; I knew it. Even if we had to race to each other from opposite ends of the galaxy, we'd make it work. What made it exciting was that we'd sworn to be lovers. I hadn't thought that usually happened . . . I thought it was just one of those things were two people fell together with a passion that burned like wildfire and everything clicked into place from there. I hadn't figured upon it being a ceremonial little vow-swearing thing. But I didn't care, because at that moment after he made his vow to me, he gently turned my chin toward him and kissed me again. We were both swept away by the sensation that rushed through us, and I remember thinking _"Oh yeah, I'm in love"_ as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

Of course, the moment only lasted a few seconds because I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I figured it was probably a tech come to see why the cams on the west corridor weren't feeding, but I nearly leaped out of my skin when I saw _Jang'buir_ coming. He was the last person I'd been expected, so I gasped exactly like the teenaged kid who's scared to death of being caught. What was he doing down there? Unless he was on his way to the sergeants' barracks . . . Or he was looking for me. Quickly, I turned to Chev as he leaned out to look. I had my hand on his chest, so I felt him inhale sharply when he saw Jango. He knew who he was with. It wasn't like he'd gone suddenly _di'kutla_ or something. He and I stepped deeper into the darkened corridor we were in, holding our breath until Jango passed by. I looked up at Chev and spoke in a hurried whisper.

"We can't let anyone know . . . If they do . . . if they do, you'll be kicked out. I'd say reconditioned, but I know they really would just drum you out. And then _he'd_ disown me." Even after that, I still reached up and lightly kissed his jaw. "But I don't think I'm really so worried about the disowning part."

Poor Chev, though; he was stiff with what seemed like fear and anxiety. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

"If I get reconditioned . . . they may try to wipe my memory . . ." I knew what that meant. That meant they'd shoot _more_ chemicals into him and cause his brain to go completely—maybe even permanently—amnesic. That was one thing I didn't want for him. He continued, "You may be worried, but I'm _scared_. But if you're not worried, then I'm not. I find this . . . kinda exciting."

He flashed me a wide grin and comically raised his eyebrows, and I giggled as I put a hand to his hair. I felt so proud of him; he was covering his own fears and doubts because he believed I had some measure of self-assurance when in reality I was as terrified as he was.

"You're not the only one," I said, referring to his comment about it all being exciting. He made me smile; _that_ was a good thing. "I've never . . . never been like this. With anyone. It's all so new and strange . . . but in a good way. And don't be afraid, Chev. We'll make it through . . . somehow."

Chev beamed at me; he knew what I meant by "new and strange." Our hearts were still fluttering from the kisses. It sounds all mushy and romance novel-ish, I know, but it was true. What brought us some measure of confidence was that we weren't stumbling through this alone; we had each other, and that was an oddly good feeling.

We went our separate ways after a few minutes and after we hooked the cams back up. We swore to meet as often as we could, if only to get away someplace solitary for a few moments. I knew he had training almost all day, every day; I promised to be flexible so we could work around his hectic schedule. After getting all our promises and oaths out and finished, we split up and went back to our respective barracks, and I'll tell you what, I practically floated on air all the way back to mine. I caught a few strange looks from Boba as I flitted around the room, humming to myself, but I didn't care. The rainy Kaminoan days and nights suddenly seemed so much brighter and livelier. Why? I was in love, for Force's sake!


	13. The Jedi Called Kenobi

**Chapter Thirteen – The Jedi Called Kenobi**

I wish I could tell you that the next two years were the same as every other year on Kamino, but . . . things changed. On the plus side, Chev and I were in love, and that part of my life was sunny and bright. We stole every spare moment we could together; sometimes, it'd be little more than a few seconds in between his sim runs, but it was enough to keep us going until the next time we could sneak off together. Hiding places in a place as brightly lit as the Kaminoan compounds were hard to find, but we managed. When I'd said that nobody could know about us, he'd taken it seriously. But after a while, even every moment we had wasn't enough to satisfy. That's what happens when you're in love. It grows deeper and wider and it takes more time with the one you love to make the days pass not quite so slowly. I'm not saying we dove, head first, into a steamy physical relationship; on the contrary, that was what we stayed away from. We both knew that if anything like that happened between us, we'd be found out in a heartbeat. So our secret rendezvous were often little more than meeting in an abandoned corridor to talk for a few moments and exchange a kiss . . . or two . . . or three . . . All right, so sometimes we got a little carried away by the . . . the hunger. But we never went any farther than that; I swear it on _Mand'alor_'s helmet . . . wherever it is.

I took only a few jobs during that time and left most of the hunting to _Jang'buir_. For one thing, I hated to leave Chev for so long, and for another, I just didn't get the same pleasure from hunting that _Jang'buir_ did. I would hunt when we needed the money, which—believe me—we didn't. We still had all that money from Jango's initial paycheck for his genes, and he started taking larger bounties. That was one of the negative changes in those two years. He was gone from home longer and more often, sometimes staying away for weeks at a time and leaving Boba and me alone. Boba insisted that he could fend for himself, so I didn't try to mother him. After all, he _was_ ten years old (oh, _wow_—sarcasm!), and if he thought he could care for himself, then fine by me. The less time I had to spend taking care of my kid brother was more time I could be waiting for Chev in one of our hiding spots. Anyway, I noticed one day that money started pouring into _Jang'buir_'s account, and that he was staying gone longer than usual. Curiosity prodded at me, so I started to do a little hunting of the non-bounty variety. What was he up to? What was he doing that was keeping him away from his family for so long? I started my investigation by rifling through his stash of personal datapads one day while he was gone and Boba was off wandering around the compound (_that_ he learned from me). What I found surprised me right out of my boots.

From the looks of things, _Jang'buir_ was on a galaxy-spanning job to assassinate a Republic senator, having been hired by some guy called Dooku, who was in cahoots with the Trade Federation. It also seemed like Jango wasn't working alone anymore, getting some help from another hunter called Zam Something-Or-Other; a bounty hunter's bounty hunter, huh? And the way I saw it, that Dooku fellow (stupidest name I ever heard; beats out "Boba" for the "Stupidest Name of the Century" award) was also leading a group called the Separatists . . . and _Jang'buir_ knew it. I'd heard the term from bits and pieces of info from the Holonet, so I knew what it was. I just couldn't believe _Jang'buir_, the man who provided the DNA for this army—which was built for the Republic, by the way—was working for a guy in league with the very people who were trying to secede from the Republic! Something wasn't fitting, so I kept hunting. It couldn't have been the money that'd gotten him involved in this _huge_ scheme to kill this Senator Amidala person; nah, it had to be something else. There'd been rumors of dissention in the Senate; talk of war with the Separatists if they kept gaining new systems. I kept looking.

A few days of reading and research yielded the information I was looking for. It broke my heart to see it, but it was what put the clincher on everything. _Jang'buir_ had been recruited for the creation of the army by a fellow called Tyranus, which, believe it or not, I found was Dooku's very secret pseudonym. (And by "very secret," I mean I had to hack a few highly encrypted databases to find it. And Sevvie had thought the armory had been encrypted . . . Hah!) And another thing: Dooku had recruited Jango at the request of some Jedi guy. Okay, so the Jedi were in on this, too? Scratch one more group of people I trusted. My guess was that somebody had been sensing war for years, so the clone army was being built as a very strong precaution. Okay, okay, nothing wrong there . . . except I suddenly got the feeling that all of them had been created just so they could be killed again. And that bothered me.

Of course, it bothered me that _Jang'buir_ would be involved in such a massive conspiracy, but I couldn't tell anyone what I'd found. I recall very clearly the few days when he _would_ be home, and I'd look at him as if I'd never seen him before in my life. He was like a complete stranger to me all of a sudden, but it wasn't just for the reasons which I just mentioned. As if he wasn't already very tight-lipped, he grew even more so. His one-sentence replies and such became one-word. Boba and I considered ourselves lucky if we could get anything out of him whenever he was home. But he was so withdrawn and so . . . involved in this new job that I spent a lot of time in the company of Chev and the others. One night, just before lights-out and after a late dinner with the others, Chev and I met alone in an abandoned corridor outside the mess hall. He looked somewhat nervous, but we embraced anyway. It was another of those nights where that split-second just wasn't enough. But I was shocked to hear what he had to say and what explained his nervousness.

"There's . . . talk the war might start soon," he said. He knew? "Rumors . . . Dissent in the Senate . . . Systems leaving . . ."

I knew what he meant; you have to remember I'd spent a lot of time tracking Jango's whereabouts, so I had learned of all this stuff. I nestled into his arms, sighing and knowing already what he was going to say.

"I don't want to leave you," he continued in a barely audible whisper. "But . . . I can't help but feel that something's gonna go wrong. During this past week, Stick's been getting edgier . . . a lot edgier."

I sighed and reached up to brush a hand through his hair.

"And _I_ don't want you to go," I said. "War or no, you should have a choice, shouldn't you?" I knew how stupid that sounded. He was born without a choice, even though I hated admitting it. I mean, let's face it. It was a near-miracle that he and I were together in the first place. I looked up and forced a smile. "But . . . if you have to go . . . then . . . then come back to me. Okay?"

He took my arms and gently squeezed them, staring into my eyes with sincerity I hadn't really noticed before. I must've been quite a _di'kut_ not to realize what a special man Chev was.

"I _will_ come back, Rogue," he said. "I swore it to you. I'll come back, and then we'll leave the war behind . . . go someplace where it's just us . . ."

He trailed off, and I sighed. That sounded good to me. Anything to get away from war and fighting and the possibility of losing him to something he didn't even have a say in. I nodded slowly, trying to slow the thoughts racing through my mind. What if war came and stayed and we could never get away? What if we could never leave and find that place just for us? I sighed and touched his cheek.

"You know I love you . . . right?"

He took my hand and gently kissed my palm.

"I know it. And you know I love you . . . more than anything."

I couldn't help but bury myself in him as I gave a feeble nod. I knew it. How could I not? I slowly began to trace the series of inverted Vs down the front of his chestplate. They made up the symbol that represented his name: a chevron. Tracing them was the only thing I could do to keep my sanity sometimes when I was scared of losing him.

"I promised you we'll make it," I said firmly. "We will . . . I'll swear it on _Mand'alor_ himself. If you have to go to war, I'm not letting you go without a fight."

Some pun. But I hadn't done that on purpose; I meant it. I'd protest his deployment all the way to the supreme courts. He just told me that if I had to swear not to fight for him against the wrong people. He told me to focus on the enemy and not fight our friends. I simply reminded him that I was a Fett and that when I saw the enemy, I'd know it, and I would fight and win. Then I took his face in my hands and kissed him, reminding him not to waste time we'd never get back by talking. We relished that moment of peace before breaking reluctantly away and bidding each other good night. I went to bed that night to a barracks that was empty except for Boba and me. _Jang'buir_ hadn't come back yet. But that was the least of our problems. Why? Because the next morning, a Jedi came to tiny Kamino.

I was wandering the halls when he entered the main facilities. The Prime Minister and Taun We were on either side of him, and it seemed as if he was touring the compound and . . . inspecting the troops. I didn't trust him from the moment I laid eyes on him. He seemed much too interested in everything to have been legit. Besides, he was showing an extreme interest in Jango, and that I found way too suspicious. So I trailed him. I crept along behind him, keeping enough distance between him and me that his Jedi powers wouldn't pick up on my presence. In fact, it seemed as though I was trailing Taun We, which I would've liked to have done. I haven't trusted her since the day we moved in. I swear, she knows more about the army than she lets on.

I followed them through the pod room by walking along behind them across the catwalks, and I was only noticed once. Taun We turned and saw me, but by the way she jumped, she must've thought I was Stick. After all, Stick and I _did_ look similar from a distance, and when we wore our similarly-colored armor, we could look like twins from a good ways off. That was why she didn't say anything when she saw me. Heh. Smart. I followed them toward the ARC barracks, and my heart skipped a beat when the Prime Minister called a certain familiar trooper over to be introduced to the Jedi. I crept closer as Chev tossed the Jedi—a fellow named Kenobi—a quick, two-fingered salute before being told to stand there for a few minutes. Lama Su proceeded to inform Kenobi of Chev's spotless training record and excellent progress, and Kenobi nodded slowly before complimenting Chev and telling him what an asset he'd be to the army. Chev just murmured his thanks before Kenobi went off for more of the tour around the facilities. Though I wanted to go after him, I refrained from following Chev to the mess hall, which had been his original destination. I had to keep an eye on Kenobi. He did _not_ look trustworthy to me.

What got my attention was when Kenobi kept showing a completely unexplainable interest in Jango. Who was he, where did he live . . . all those questions. Those blasted _kaminii_, so involved with showing off the army, told him everything. And I got skittish when Kenobi asked to meet Jango and Taun We agreed to set it up. Great. Just great. _Jang'buir_ wasn't even due home for another few hours . . . and I knew they still had another half of the compound to tour . . . I had a long time to tell everyone I needed to about the Jedi. So I hightailed it to the mess hall.

I raced in there as fast as I could, ignoring anybody who tried to turn me out. I darted across the room to where Chev and the gang normally sat, and when I got there, I found that Stick had nearly piled the table sky-high with various explosives. I was about to ask what they were for when I remembered that she had testing that morning. Well, that also explained her nervous jitters. But once I told them what was going on, she'd be even jitterier. Everything else looked normal except that the Deltas weren't around. I'd have liked to have told them about Kenobi, too, but I figured they were in training and I didn't have time to track them down.

"Did you all know there's a Jedi in the compound?" I asked, sliding into my usual seat. "He's come to inspect the army . . . and to meet Jango, or so he'd like. Now if _that's_ not suspicious, I don't know what is."

I reached across for Chev's hand and squeezed it, and he looked up at me.

"I . . . I think you were right," I whispered. "Why else would that Jedi be here?"

I knew I looked skittish and paranoid to them; it was how I felt. He shrugged and returned the squeeze on my hand, remembering fully how he'd been introduced to Kenobi that morning before breakfast. I could see little cogwheels turning in his mind, and I knew he was worried, too. The only ones who seemed not to be too concerned about Kenobi were Stick and Sevvie. Stick was nervously rushing through her meal and Sevvie was warning her not to get sick from eating too fast. I looked over at them and sighed before turning back to Chev.

"If you can get them alone, tell them what's going on. And just keep your eyes open, okay? You never know what this could mean . . ."

Chev nodded and agreed to keep his eyes peeled as I stood and left the mess hall, heading back for our barracks to tell Boba and maybe _Jang'buir_ if he was back. On my way out, I noticed Stick crossing the hall behind me, arms burdened with all her explosives. I kept going before hearing something of a crash and a few choice swear words from her. I wheeled around, thinking we were all about to become popcorn, and I found that none other than Kenobi had walked right into her and nearly set off all her ordnance. My eyes widened as he spoke to her for a minute, but I quickly turned and raced off, somewhat grateful for the incident. It gave me a few more minutes to get back to the barracks because I saw Taun We coming down the hall after him.

When I thrust myself through the barracks door, I was breathless from running. Boba glanced up when I raced in, and he must've thought I was nuts. My hair was tousled and my tunic was sliding off one shoulder. Quickly, I took a breath and a moment to compose myself.

"_Jang'buir_ back yet?" I asked.

Still looking at me strangely, Boba reached up and pointed out the window, where we had a clear view of the _Slave I_'s landing pad. Ignoring how much I hated that he'd turned out _exactly _as tight-lipped as Jango, I ran over to the window, peered out, and sighed heavily when I saw the ship there. It had only recently returned; I could tell that from the way that steam rose in thin wisps from the hot durasteel when the cold raindrops hit them. And I saw a familiar set of blue and silver armor heading through the doors. I literally counted the minutes until the barracks door slid open and _Jang'buir_ ambled in. When he tugged off his helmet, he looked irritated, so I didn't question anything.

"I've got news," I said simply, darting across toward him.

"So have I," he replied, tossing me a small datapad. "New job for you."

Frack. Just what I'd been hoping for: a little trip around the galaxy to pick up the price off the head of some low-end criminal. When I glanced down to the datapad, my eyes went wide. I'd be leaving that afternoon. Frack again!

"Sure," I shrugged, "I'll leave as soon as I can. But now for my news." I took a deep breath and looked him right in the eyes. "There's a Jedi wandering around."

Well, it was just as I'd expected. He stiffened visibly, and his jaw went even tighter than usual. Even Boba looked like he was getting a bit edgy. I guessed he was picking it up off _Jang'buir_ and whatever father-son bond thing there was there.

"Where is the Jedi?" was all Jango asked.

I walked to the door and glanced out, jumping slightly when I saw Kenobi coming. Boy, he was coming quicker than I'd hoped!

"Well . . . to be honest . . . he's walking up the hallway with Taun We."

That lit almost a literal fire under _Jang'buir_'s backside. He dashed off into a small storage room just off the main living area and slammed the door behind himself. I didn't figure he'd run in there to hide; I figured it was more likely that he'd run in there to change out of his armor. I hadn't gotten told him yet that Kenobi had come to inspect the troops (so he said), so I guess he thought Kenobi was after him for something. My only question was . . . did he have a reason to fear that? The Jedi were pacifists who didn't go looking to pick a fight with a deadly Mandalorian bounty hunter . . . unless they had a death wish. I shuffled over to the wall and leaned back against it, hiding the way my stomach flipped when the doorbell buzzed. Boba crawled up from his seat and walked over to the door, answering it with a raised eyebrow and no words. (He was actually a pretty good kid once you looked past the fact that he irritated the _osik_ out of me with his little brother-esque practical jokes.) I counted backwards from five in Mando'a, and as soon as I hit _solus_, Kenobi appeared around the corner. He glanced over at me for a moment, but my expression didn't change. I just stood there, trying to ice my face as best I could. He looked around the apartment for a moment before _Jang'buir_ reappeared, looking so very calm and collected . . . if not a little miffed that the Kaminoans had let a Jedi into his family's quarters. I noticed that when Kenobi saw him, his eyes darted back to me, and I knew what was going through his mind. He was wondering who I was, what I was doing there, and how I was related to Jango and Boba when the only offspring that had no doubt been mentioned to him was Boba. And then he was comparing me to them. I knew there were differences he was studying; he was looking at their black hair and my brown, their brown eyes and my hazel ones that were closer to green. He knew I couldn't possibly be a direct child of Jango's, so—as I'm sure he thought—who was I?

_Harm _Jang'buir_ and I'll be your worst nightmare,_ jetii I thought, narrowing my eyes.

He turned his attention back to Jango when Taun We asked him if his trip had been productive. What did she know about his trip, eh? Just how many Kaminoan eyes did we Fetts have glued to us?! _Jang'buir_ shrugged and rolled up a sleeve of his tunic.

"Fairly." Uh oh. I knew that tone he used. It meant something had gone wrong. It may not have been life-threatening or whatever, but something had happened that had caused his mission to become sub-par.

But I appreciated the ice in his tone. It was something I longed to learn, and, after much practice, was beginning to be able to imitate. I knew that if he kept it up, he'd put the Jedi in his place quicker than anything. Boba and I watched the exchange between them; tension was so thick in the nauseatingly sterile air that I could've cut through it with my knife and made little bite-size pieces of it. I'll spare you a transcript of the entire conversation, but I'll share this one bit that really grabbed my attention. Kenobi mentioned the clones and commented how _Jang'buir_ must be proud of them. I knew he was, but he just answered with a shrug and a nonchalant comment about being a simple man trying to make his way in the universe. Hah. Simple, _indeed_. He had several million credits stashed away in a bank account on Ord Mantell or someplace.

"Ever made your way as far into the Interior as Coruscant?" Kenobi asked. Yep, I _knew_ he wasn't just here to see the army.

"Once or twice."

"Recently?" Ooh, this guy was _not_ letting go.

Pause.

"Possibly."

_Jang'buir_ for the win! I had not heard such a cool reply _ever_ in the thirteen years I'd lived with him, and I couldn't help but smirk as I made a mental note to somehow learn how to get that icing effect. The dialogue continued for a while as the tension mounted. Even my muscles began to tighten; you see, when I get edgy, the muscles in my thighs and lower legs contract in case I need to run. I relaxed—but just barely—when Boba wandered over and shut the storage room door. I guess it was knowing that the armor was now hidden. But even that didn't really calm the air. There was still the ten-foot-thick wall of ice and rock between Kenobi and _Jang'buir_, and I'll admit that I was hoping Kenobi would walk away with a punch in the nose. But _Jang'buir_ knew better than to pick a fight right then, so I was relieved when Kenobi finally bowed out and left. I watched him go, keeping my eyes on him at all time. As he left, I noticed he leaned over to Taun We and mentioned me. I stiffened as she replied in that liquid voice of hers that I was adopted and had come to Kamino with Jango. Kenobi nodded slowly and turned to cast one last glance at me, at which time I narrowed my eyes and shot him a cold glare. His eyes widened somewhat, but he left peacefully, and I hoped to the highest level of the Force that I'd never see the likes of him again.

When I turned back around, I found _Jang'buir_ and Boba hurriedly packing their belongings. I'd barely asked what was going on before _Jang'buir_ told me they were leaving. Needless to say, I was a little surprised; all right, a _lot_ surprised. The hurried feeling that came over me had me jumping into my armor and gearing up in a few minutes. If they were leaving, then I would go ahead for that job. We took a moment to say goodbye in case we couldn't meet back up soon, and _Jang'buir_ told me to meet them on Geonosis when I had finished my job. I agreed and watched them leave for the _Slave I_ before running off down the halls in search of Chevron. Something wasn't right; I could feel it as clearly as I could feel the floor beneath my feet. I couldn't help but feel that something was going to go terribly, terribly wrong and I'd never see my family again. But I tried to ignore it, tried to forget about how brief our farewell had been, as I raced down the hall. Well, I didn't find Chev; he found me. I ran right into him in my rush.

"Hey, Rogue, what's wrong?" he asked, looking at me concernedly.

"I . . . I have a job," I said quickly. "I have to leave right away."

He looked absolutely crushed, so I reached up to touch his jaw.

"Hey, I'll be back," I soothed. "It's only for a couple of days."

"But what if I get deployed before then?"

Hmm. Now that _was_ a problem. I hadn't even really thought about it, but I nodded once before leading him back down the hall to the now-abandoned apartment my father, brother, and I had been living in. It was the only place I knew of that would be completely solitary. Once we got there, I shut the door and wrapped my arms around Chev's neck, kissing him as deeply as I could. He kissed me back, holding me. This was the only way I knew to say goodbye, so I did. I don't know how long we stayed there, but it was long enough that our kisses became so much deeper and longer. I'm not ashamed to admit that I wanted him . . . and badly. And yes, I mean like _that_. But the thing was, we both knew it'd be wrong, so we settled for those few fleeting moments in each others' arms. When we pulled away, I cradled his face in my hands and smiled at him before reaching up and brushing my fingers through the hair lying flat against his neck. 

"How soon will you come back?" he asked, practically breathless from the kisses.

"As soon as I can," I replied. "Heck, I'll probably be back before you're even deployed."

"I hope so," he whispered.

I looked at him, my face serious. He was afraid, and I knew it. I was too. We didn't know if Kenobi's visit had been routine or because war was just around the corner. We didn't even know if we'd ever see each other again. We weren't sure of anything. But there was one thing I was sure of, and that was that I would get back to him if I had to claw my way out of a gundark's nest or go through hell and back.

"I _will_ return to you," I breathed, mimicking his promise to me from both earlier that day and from two years before. "You hear me, Chev? _Haat, ijaa, haa'it._ I'll be back."

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him one more time before whispering that I loved him into his ear. He returned it, seeming for the first time so . . . so vulnerable and frightened. I squeezed his hand as I turned and left the apartment.

And I made the biggest mistake of my life by walking away. I didn't even look back. That later became my most painful regret. I didn't even go find Stick, Sevvie, _or_ the Deltas and say goodbye to them, because I was so certain we'd all meet up again in a couple of days and everything would be back to normal. So I just hurried out to my fighter, jumped in, and dashed off for my job. Another lame-_shebs_ bounty, here I come.


	14. Geonosis

**Chapter Fourteen – Geonosis **

I couldn't believe how quickly I finished off that bounty. Well, I didn't finish him off in the sense of putting either a blaster bolt through his skull or slicing my knife across his jugular; this one I was actually lucky enough to turn in alive. But I collected on him in a day or so and hurried off to Geonosis to meet back up with _Jang'buir_. The whole time I was flying out there from that job in the Core, I couldn't help but feel that something nasty was either about to happen or already had. I couldn't help but jiggle my leg with nervous anxiety as I flew through space toward the ringed planet. While I had been hoping for a quick, easy reunion and all three of us heading off for Mandalore or somewhere, what I got was an eyeful of Trade Federation droid control ships and Republic assault ships. The first thing out of me was a groan and "Oh, _no_." I hadn't thought war would come so quickly or in such a strange place. If anything, I expected it to be on Coruscant or somewhere other than a dusty planet hanging in the Outer Rim a parsec or two from Tatooine. I don't know how I was able to get past the planetary blockade, but I managed to squeeze my fighter in through the Republic line. They must've thought I was a straggler and that was the reason I was there. Oh, if they only knew . . .

Oddly enough, I wasn't thinking about _Jang'buir_ or Boba as I raced down to the planet's surface. I was thinking about Chevron. It seemed to me that by swearing to return before his deployment, I'd somehow cursed him to be sent out. But yet, if he was on Geonosis, I had a chance of finding him, of getting him out of there. I had a chance to taking him away where he wouldn't have to fight anymore. And if he was there, then the others probably would be, too . . . Of course, I thought about _Jang'buir_. I knew he was on the planet somewhere, and I knew he'd promised to meet me there. But he hadn't said exactly where, so I just followed the explosions across the surface. From the sky beneath the red, low-hanging clouds, I saw the pristine white armor of clone troopers jogging along in the sands. It was a full-blown battle; that I could tell even from that distance. And even from up there in my fighter, I could see hundreds—maybe thousands—of battle droids that had met their demises from the blast of a trooper's DC-15 rifle. In the back of my mind, I thought about how I preferred the commandos' DC-17, but I quickly shoved that out of my head as I saw that not only were enemy droid losses heavy but that the red sands were dotted by fallen white armor. I felt a pang of sorrow as I realized that down there, lying dead or wounded, were men I'd grown up with, played with, trained with. I hoped with all my heart that Chev wasn't down there in the thick of combat, but then I realized that ARC units—no, _troopers_. He never deserved to be referred to like a droid—were rarely assigned to combat units. I knew my best chances of finding him—and Stick and the others—were at the forward command center.

It wasn't that hard to find it. It was right up there at the back of the combat, and I came in low, not exactly buzzing it but not flying too high to remain unseen either. I was counting on my surprise arrival to garner attention, which, of course, it did. The guys in charge of watching the skies quickly commed me, and I was a little startled to hear a voice so like _Jang'buir_'s coming through my flight helmet. When they referred to me as "unidentified ARC-170," I got a bit miffed.

"My _name_ is Rogue Fett, trooper," I snapped, and I heard a sharp inhale on the other side. Oh, they knew who I was, all right. "What's going on here? Hurry it up!"

"_Of course, ma'am."_ Ooh, so I was referred to as "ma'am" now? My, these guys were certainly intelligent, and I'm not saying that as a dig to them. Maybe just a little . . . sarcastic. _"We're in full-scale war with the Separatists. Right now our statistics are—"_

"I'm not interested in the stats right now, soldier!" I barked. It was at that point that _Jang'buir_ popped back into my mind, but I didn't worry about him. I knew he was more than capable of taking care of himself. "Have any ARC units been deployed?"

I knew I'd called them "units" again, but it was the only word I could think of that the fellow I was talking to would recognize besides "trooper."

"_Yes, ma'am,"_ came the reply after a moment's pause, _"several. They were sent to infiltrate the Sep droid factories, I believe."_

"And those are . . . where?"

He quickly gave me some directions and I shot off toward the place the foundries were supposed to be. My heart began to pound as I set my fighter down and leaped from the cockpit. Something wasn't right; I knew that much. There were so many destroyed droids that I had a bit of a hard time believing it. Whoever had descended on the place and swarmed through there—whether it was the ARCs or just the "regular" variety of trooper—certainly had made one giant heap of spare parts. But that wasn't the first thing I noticed. It was quiet there . . . _too_ quiet. I couldn't help but swallow hard when I saw a few dead troopers lying prone in the dirt, blood streaking their otherwise clean white armor. Something—or some_one_ for all I knew—had come through with an unbelievable show of brute strength. I shoved my _buy'ce_ onto my head and blinked to bring the visor to life. I flexed my arm to be sure that my knife was still tucked into my gauntlet, and when I knew it was, I took off across the canyons for the first entrance I saw. It was a huge hole blown in the side of a rock wall, and from the remains of the detonator package, I knew it was some of Stick's handiwork. So if she'd blown that wall, then she and the others _had_ to be nearby . . . Right?

I slipped my blaster from my holster in case I ran into some trouble as I crept through the darkened hallways, my eyes scanning every which way for some sign of what had happened. Everything was as silent as a . . . well, grave. I could hear neither distant blasterfire nor the clanking characteristic of the metal components of droids and machinery. Nothing. But I was beginning to see signs of a struggle. If Stick _had_ been through here with her explosives, she did one heck of a job blowing the place to the lowest hell. I looked down at the floor when I noticed the scuffing common of hurriedly moving boots. Long streaks of blood stretched out across the dirt for several feet; they looked like claw marks, to be honest. Those same claw marks, though not bloody, traced a pattern with boot prints across the dirt. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I began to stumble across the first dead. What was once an isolated trooper dead from a blaster shot or an explosion now became several, each bearing the slash of a lightsaber across his chest. Whoever had been here had been—I hated to say it—a Jedi. At least, that was what it looked like to me. I cringed to think that a peace-loving _jetii_ could've done this.

But what brought me to a grinding halt was what I found when I rounded a corner. My heart began to pound when those bloody claw marks became more frequent, as did the boot scuffles. Everything there seemed to show signs of some sort of melee battle, but then my heart nearly came to a standstill when I saw the fifteen or so troopers lying dead in the middle of the room. And . . . and there, in the middle, was one with . . . with four inverted Vs down the front of his chestplate, and my knees went weak. I went completely numb, because even from where I stood, I knew he was dead. I barely made it across the room before my legs gave out and I crumpled, tearing my helmet away and staring down at him as if this was all one huge nightmare and I'd wake up back on Kamino in the morning.

_Jang'buir_ once told me that _Mando'ade_ don't cry. Well, this one did. They weren't the tears I'd shed if I were a "normal" woman watching a sad holovid. I was crying the way anybody cries when their soul feels like it's been ripped from the rest of them. I couldn't help but sob as I gathered Chevron into my arms, pressing his head to my chest. I could only think _"If I'd gotten here sooner."_ Maybe he would've had a chance. But, then again . . . maybe not. I looked down at him as I kissed his forehead and found a charred hole through his chestplate—the place where his heart was. And he'd been dead for several hours already; I knew this because he was getting stiff and very cold to the touch. I began to cry harder, my throat tightening to the point where I had to gasp for breath.

"Oh, Chev . . ." I whispered, barely able to breathe, much less talk. "Chev . . . _ner cyar'ika_ . . . What did they do to you?!"

I cradled him for several long minutes, holding him as tightly as I could as if that would somehow bring him back. I spared another glance around the room and found an ARC-sized dent in the rock wall and the radial rings of a huge explosion not too far away from where I'd found Chev. Metal shards spread out in every direction from it; somebody had tossed a grenade at their attacker, but even with that, there were no survivors that I could see. But at that moment, looking down at the hole through Chev's chest and the slashes across the others, I knew who had done it. One name came to my mind, and I recalled it with disgust.

_Kenobi._

I _knew_ it'd been him. He didn't explain the bloody claw marks, but it was possible he had been in league with the native Geonosians to take these troopers' lives . . . to steal my Chev from me. Besides, he'd been suspicious ever since he came to Kamino. He'd been planning something, planning to lure these men into a trap and then kill them. I was so sure of it that I couldn't help but hate him. I couldn't help but tremble with rage as I held Chev, and I stared angrily at the stone ceiling.

"Force damn you, Kenobi!" I hissed. "You were planning this all along, to take him from me! Damn you!!"

Revenge started forming in my mind; if I didn't get vengeance for Chevron's blood, no one would. Tears streamed down my face again as I crumpled into a miserable heap at Chev's side, my arms wrapped tightly around him. Right then, I just wanted to die too. If we couldn't have our future together, then I wanted nothing to have to do with life anymore. I didn't even notice the trail of staggering footprints that trailed out the door that indicated that there was another sharing my anguish. But all I could think about as I squeezed my eyes shut was that I would _love_ to drive my knife through Kenobi's heart like he'd driven his lightsaber through Chev's.

Just then, there was a noise in the shadows, the sound of rushed footsteps. I sat up, cautiously looking around. The steps grew louder, which meant they were getting closer. I started going for my blaster again, but then I realized that those footsteps sounded . . . frightened. I strained my eyes when I saw a figure in the dimness, but they widened when I saw it was Boba. He looked absolutely terrified, poor kid. His steps were faulty and trembling as he raced toward me, and his face was streaked with tears, leaving salty stripes down his cheeks. My breath caught when I saw he clutched _Jang'buir_'s familiar silver and blue helmet in his hands, but I was still a bit surprised to see him there.

"Rogue!" he cried, his voice quivering. "Rogue, help! Help . . . _ori'vod_!"

That was new. He'd never called me his big sister before. But then again, he was in a hard panic, for he tripped over his boots and crumpled to the sandy floor, crying harder. I scrambled over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Boba? What are you—" I gave a start when I got a closer look at the helmet as it tumbled from his grip. Almost immediately, I knew what it meant. "Oh, no . . . _no_ . . . _Jang'buir_, no . . . !"

Tears started down my face again as Boba looked up at me, his brown eyes full of fear and misery.

"The . . . the Jedi . . ." he sputtered. "They killed him . . . One slash . . . and he was gone!"

_Oh, Kenobi, you're paying for this,_ I thought, my heart burning. _Stealing a boy's father from him . . ._

"Rogue . . ." Boba continued, reaching over and grabbing my arm with his sweaty, trembling hand, "what do we do? What're we gonna do without Dad?!"

I wrapped my arms around him and sighed heavily. Never before had we been so truly alone. Never before had my little brother truly been my little brother: completely terrified and dependent of me. And we'd never felt so vulnerable and . . . well, _helpless_. I didn't know for the life of me what we were going to do. He needed me to give him an answer, to give him something to cling to, but I couldn't. _I_ needed something to cling to. I cradled his head against my shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut against a fresh onslaught of tears.

"Shh, _Bo'ika_," I murmured, trying to offer some measure of comfort. "We'll . . . We'll think of something."

I'll _think of something._

Suddenly, we were all we had in the world. He had only me; I had only him. I began to slowly rock him, trying to sing a song that usually brought me a flood of peace. It was an old Mando war chant known as _"Vode An"_: "Brothers All." Its haunting melody and strong words usually filled me with pride in my heritage. So, a bit feebly, I began.

"_Bal kote, darasuum kote, jorso'ran kando a tome._" I took a shaky breath before continuing. "_Sa kyr'am nau tracyn kad, vode an._"

As if the words weren't beautiful enough in Mando'a, they were even more so in Basic: "And glory, eternal glory, we shall bear its weight together. Forged like the saber in the fires of death, brothers all." It had been around since the _Mando'ade_ were only a few clans, since the ancient times. Chev had always loved to hear me sing it, as had _Jang'buir_, though he never mentioned it. Poor _Bo'ika_ weakly tried to sing along with me, but I knew our father's death was still excruciatingly painful for him. All he could bring himself to do was bury himself in my arms like the frightened child he really was. If anything, he was holding me as tightly as I was holding him. But after a minute, I knew we had to leave Geonosis. We had to get away; we had to run. I gently pushed him back and gripped his shoulders firmly.

"_Bo'ika_," I said, "can you go get the _Slave_ for me? Please? Do you think you can do that?" I smoothed his ruffled hair, loving my little rodent brother more than I ever had before. I kept watching him. "Please, be strong for me, _vod'ika_. Be strong for _us_."

He nodded before grabbing _Jang'buir_'s helmet and dashing back into the tunnels he had come from. He was almost out of sight before he paused and turned back to me, a look of sheer confusion across his face.

"_Ro'ika_ . . . I saw someone else, too. She was mad at Dad. Why'd anyone be mad at Dad?"

Poor thing. In his eyes, _Jang'buir_ had been the ideal man. If anything, Boba would grow up striving to emulate his father in everything he did. I swore never to tell him of the sordid business with the Separatists I'd found in those datapads. I quickly shook my head.

"I don't know . . . I just don't know . . . But hurry. We're taking him to Mandalore; we'll bury him there." I turned away and crept back to Chev's side, holding him again as my eyes began to water. "And you, too. I'll not leave you here."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Boba shoot me a strange glance before racing off to get the _Slave I_ as I'd asked. I looked back up at the ceiling for several long minutes before I finally croaked out an oath to Kenobi.

"I _know_ it was you, Kenobi. I will find you, and I will kill you. So help me, you will die as they did."

I swore it on my personal honor which was even more dangerous than swearing it on _haat, ijaa, haa'it_. After a few minutes, I heard the whistle of the _Slave I_'s engines and felt the rumble of the vibrations it made as it landed. I don't know how I did it—a lot of my memories from that day are fuzzy because I was so deeply shocked—but I got Chev up into the cargo hold and laid him there. Boba must've thought I'd lost my sanity, bringing a dead man along, but what did he think I was going to get _Jang'buir_ for? I slid into the cockpit as I got the ship back into the air before I turned to Boba.

"You have to show me where he died," I said. "We have to find him so we can take him to our _real_ home."

Boba showed me the way to a huge, abandoned arena littered with bodies. Some were clone troopers and others were Jedi. There were a few huge beasts lying there, as well as dozens of droids, but even with all that, it wasn't that hard to find who I was looking for. While Boba kept the ship ready, I scrambled out and raced across the arena to the blue and silver heap that was gleaming as the sunlight reflected off the metal. I will admit, I felt a bit weak in the knees and stomach to see _Jang'buir_ without his head, but . . . I managed. I knelt at his side, feeling like I was going to either cry or throw up—or both—any minute.

"Oh, _Jang'buir_," I whispered, my throat closing. "What a way to go . . . If only you'd been invincible . . . as I'd thought you were when you first adopted me."

I got him back to the ship, too, before sliding back into the cockpit. Lying on my back for a few moments before the _Slave I_ went vertical was enough to keep the tears from pouring from my eyes. I knew that most folks would think I was showing a weakness, but my tight-lipped, tough-guy brother had been crying, too. Quickly, I punched _Manda'yaim_'s coordinates into the navicomputer before I finally let myself heave a sigh. Once we were safely in hyperspace, Boba looked over at me.

"Are we going to go back home?" he asked. "To Kamino, I mean."

Of course that was home to him. That was the only home he'd ever known. Me, I'd known Coruscant and Mandalore before that soggy planet, but I didn't correct him or get all angry or whatever. I just looked at him and shook my head.

"No, _Bo'ika_. We're going someplace special. We're going to the home of our ancestors . . . to the place where I first came to live with _Jang'buir_. Kamino holds nothing for us, not any longer." He looked a bit excited at the prospect of a new world to live on, so I forced a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We'll survive even if I have to hunt a thousand bounties so we can."

Well, I'd just sold myself into practical slavery to the vocation of my dead father. But I had to do it. It was the only thing I knew _how_ to do, the only way I knew to survive. Boba tilted his head at me, looking thoughtful.

"Since Dad was teaching you . . . can you teach me? That way, we can go hunting together, like Dad used to with Zam!"

My first thought was "_Jang'buir_ told him about her but not me?!", but my second thought was how what he'd just asked me to do was such a huge undertaking . . . _Jang'buir_ had been training him a little, but he'd been gone so often that Boba's learning the Mando ways sometimes suffered. Back on Kamino, I would fill in from time to time and give him history and culture lessons, but it just wasn't the same as working side-by-side with the person you call father. Slowly, I drew a breath and nodded.

"Yes. I'll teach you the way I was taught." I looked at him again and forced another smile. "You'll do well; I know you will."

He beamed at my faith in him before his face fell back into sadness, as did mine. My mind was reeling so badly that I could barely concentrate on the ship. I could barely keep my mind on getting us home to Mandalore because I was remembering what life had been like before war. I was remembering the nights at the barracks when we'd converse _only_ in Mando'a. Basic would be off-limits on those nights, and we'd laugh whenever one of us made an error either in our grammar or our vocabulary. And then I thought back to Chev . . . to the night we fell in love . . . I kept thinking about how good it'd felt to kiss him, and I felt my throat close again. Swallowing hard, I blinked back yet more tears and set my jaw firmly as I stared out the windshield to the swirls of hyperspace as we kept going, bound for what I knew truly was "home."


	15. The Place I Called Home

**Chapter Fifteen – The Place I Called Home**

A few long hours after we left Geonosis—"ran from" would probably be better—we came out of hyperspace to the wonderful sight of Mandalore. The sight was enough to make me sigh reminiscently, thinking back to when I was a little six-year-old who was overly concerned with her linguistic abilities . . . or lack thereof. I got a little teary-eyed just thinking about it, but Boba . . . Oh, _Bo'ika_ was so excited to be in a new place, maybe even starting a brand new life . . . Yeah, okay, so I felt this, well, _need_ to take care of him and make sure he grew up well. At nineteen, I probably wasn't the best person qualified for the job, but he was still my brother and I was the only person he had! I mean, I could've hauled him back to Kamino and dropped him off with Skirata or one of the other sergeants, but he was my _brother_. Maybe not biologically, but we have a saying in Mando'a to remedy that: _Aliit ori'shya tal'din_, or "family is more than blood." I'll save you the time it'd take to read a long, drawn-out explanation and hope that you understand what that phrase meant to me just then.

I still remembered where the "ol' homestead" was, so I steered the _Slave I_ across the planet to it. I'll admit, my throat got a little tight when I saw the house still sitting there, but I sucked it up and crawled out of the ship. It was such a beautiful day to have had such tragedy in it already. The sky was clear and blue, and birds were chirping in the trees nearby . . . And I was about to bury my two loved ones? On such a nice day? Please. I literally expected there to be thunder and lightning to accompany it because that was what I felt like inside. Losing _Jang'buir_ and Chev so quickly had certainly left a huge scar; besides, I was already plotting my revenge on Kenobi. But first things first.

Boba helped me choose a place to bury them, which ended up being a wide open spot of land a few hundred feet from the house. What was embarrassing beyond belief was that I had no way to dig the graves except . . . two rather large explosive charges. Well, those certainly blew six-foot-deep holes in the ground, but getting the dirt back to fill them later was going to be a little hard. (You stop laughing. You're being disrespectful of the deceased.) Of course, preparing their bodies for burial was just as hard, if not more so. Just before I laid them to rest, I followed Mando culture and selected a piece of their armor to take a wear as my own. From _Jang'buir_, I took his wrist-mounted flame thrower and his custom blasters. I knew they weren't his actual armor, per say, but they were the tools of his trade and the one thing that made me think of him. And from Chevron . . . From him, I took his chestplate and nothing else, replacing my black one with that grayish-white one with the inverted _v_'s. It was all I could do to keep his memory alive; that chestplate had become one of the most important things to me. I didn't even bother to patch the charred hole in it that now rested over _my_ heart. I had to keep it there to remind me why I would hunt Kenobi. Poor Boba stood and watched from a distance; having not known Chev and still too shaken to approach his father's body, he took nothing, so I did it for him. I saved _Jang'buir_'s helmet for him, knowing it was all he'd be able to hang onto. I also kept Chev's helmet, but that was because I knew that if I ever found Stick, she might like to have it.

Somehow, I got them into the ground, filling the graves and smoothing the dirt out over them. I think that was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do: cover two of the most special people in my life with nothing more than six feet of dirt. I sank to my knees beside the graves when it was all over and done with, slipping my gauntlet from my hand so I could feel the warm earth between my fingers. I don't guess I even have to mention that my throat began to tighten as I whispered my remembrance to them.

"_Ni su'cuyi_, _gar kyr'adyc_, _ni partayli_, _gar darasuum_: Jango Fett, Chevron . . ."

Yeah, that was hard, telling them that. And I'd do it every night for the rest of my life; that was one thing that was certain. Of course, I could barely breathe as I looked at Chev's grave and spoke to it.

"_Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_,_ ner cyar'ika_."

I meant it. Force knows how I meant it. Yet I couldn't forget about the other one I loved. I climbed to my feet and returned to Boba, holding _Jang'buir_'s helmet out to him.

"Here," I said, pressing it into his hands, "you keep this. You may need it . . . to give you something to hold onto if you don't have anything else."

He nodded solemnly, hugging the helmet to his chest. His big brown eyes were glistening with unshed tears; poor kid—he was trying to hard to hold out. I wrapped my arms around him, cradling the top of his head under my chin.

"It's okay to cry," I said. "Don't ever let anyone tell you that just because you're Mando, you're not allowed to cry."

He didn't say anything, but he dug his chin into my shoulder, and after a few seconds, I felt the body glove under my armor plates grow warm and slightly damp as his tears seeped through the interlocks. I just hugged him tighter; if he felt the way I did, then he was eternally grateful that he wasn't alone. We stood out there, me rubbing his back, for what seemed like hours even though I knew it was only a few minutes. Eventually, I pulled back and gazed down at him.

"Whenever you're ready, I'll teach you what I know. Then we can hunt together."

He nodded in agreement, and I turned and led him toward the house. We didn't have any dinner; not only did we not have the necessary supplies, but neither of us was hungry, anyway. I took my old room; Boba took _Jang'buir_'s. As I headed up the stairs to bed, I heard him crying himself to sleep. My heart literally broke as I realized he'd been bottling it up all that time. But it had been a long day, too . . . I hoped that things would seem a little brighter in the morning. As I crawled into bed, I felt so overwhelmed by my sudden responsibilities toward my brother that I could only heave a shuddering sigh and pull the blankets up over my head. But that was the night the night those horrible nightmares began. My head started being swarmed by agonizing dreams of seeing Chev die. I was too late to save him, too late to help him . . . I kept seeing the gleaming blade of a lightsaber reaching out of the shadows and burying itself into his chest, the point coming out his back. I kept hearing his agonized cry as he slumped to the ground, and after that, I awoke gasping for air, holding my own chest before I crumpled into my pillow. As I sobbed, the one thing I realized was that I'd not seen his killer's face . . . only the lightsaber's shimmering blade. And that troubled me. Badly.


	16. Remedying Insanity

**Chapter Sixteen – Remedying Insanity**

For the next year, I didn't do anything other than teach Boba everything I'd ever learned about the bounty hunter business, and needless to say, he was progressing magnificently. He made me so proud of him, which is saying a lot considering how three years ago, I was practically willing to chop him in two. (This is not counting my willingness to trade him in on a new sniper rifle the day he was born, but shh. He doesn't know about that.) Of course, I knew it had something to do with the fact that he was all I had in the galaxy. I felt this sisterly urge to protect him and keep him out of scrapes while providing for both of us. Sometimes it was hard to make ends meet, even for just the two of us, but we managed. I scrimped and scraped and saved up every credit I could. I even began selling off our extra rifles—well, the ones that were stored in the _Slave I_, at least. We had to eat, after all. I'd get those rifles back someday when we had the money, but for the time being . . . that was what I had to do to keep food on our table.

The war was going well, from what I'd heard on the HoloNet. It started appearing that everyone was beginning to forget about Geonosis . . . everyone except the clones, that is. Those who were there, who watched comrades die, who just barely came away with their own lives . . . they all remembered. The first anniversary left me angry and depressed. I was angry because no one else in the galaxy cared about the men who were dying on the front lines because they didn't know any better, but I was depressed because it'd been a full year since I'd lost my Chevron and my father. I think that was why I got back on the road again. Boba and I picked up everything, and I began hunting again. I did the majority of the work; Boba would stand by with the _Slave_ in case there was trouble. But he was learning well, and I knew I'd have to someday let him make a solo hunt of his own.

My first job after that hiatus from the world of bounty hunting was a relatively simple one, so I'll spare the boring details. I'll just say that it was so simple that _Boba_, in his somewhat untrained state, could have done it. Anyway, I finished that job and pocketed a couple thousand credits before heading for home. (Now, you have to realize that the planet I did that job on was so far out in the Outer Rim I didn't even recognize its name. That's what makes this next part . . . interesting.) As we were headed for Mandalore, we crossed another nearby—and unnamed—system. Something unexplainable about it tugged at me, so while ignoring Boba's protests, I wheeled the _Slave_ around and aimed for the planet. Upon entering its atmosphere, I found it to be a dry, dusty planet with swirling sand and low-hanging red-gray clouds. Something about it made me a bit nervous as I moved the _Slave_ down closer to the surface. Well, get yourself ready for a surprise, because as soon as we got down there, I found nothing other than an ARC-170 sitting there, barely visible for all the sand. Quickly, I scrambled out of the cockpit, telling Boba to stay put and keep the _Slave_ ready to go in case something should go wrong. Eyes wide with curiosity, I wandered over to it, running my hand along its nose. I guess maybe I'd been hoping to find some sort of ID of the pilot; perhaps he'd painted his designation or even his nickname on the fuselage. Well, I found nothing, so I quickly glanced around.

"Uh, hello?" I called. "Anybody here? Anybody attached to this fighter?"

It was silent for a few minutes before there was the sound of boots shuffling. I squinted my eyes against the sand, mentally berating myself for leaving my helmet in the _Slave I_'s cockpit. But I couldn't believe what I was seeing when a familiar set of navy and black armor ambled out from a nearby rock crevice. I stared for a while, my jaw nearly dropping. What was Stick doing all the way out here? She gently rubbed the fighter's nose, mumbling under her breath.

"'Attached,' my _shebs_. I oughtta beat the _osik_ out of whoever—" She came to a grinding halt as her eyes locked onto me—more importantly, my chestplate. I swallowed hard as I saw delusion start gleaming in her eyes along with tears that were welling in them. "Chev? Chev . . . No, you can't be . . . stabbed . . . you're supposed to be _dead_, Chev!"

My hand went right to my chestplate as she crumbled to the ground, curling up into a little ball and sobbing hysterically. I think it was at that moment that I knew for certain that she'd been at Geo. It was also at that moment that I saw a Stick I'd never seen before. I'd never seen her so in pain, so . . . vulnerable. And I felt this strange sense of kinship that I hadn't felt before. She'd gone through exactly what I had, if not a more extreme version. After all, if she'd been there, she would have seen . . . I quickly shook my head as I slid down to her side, throwing my arms around her and squeezing her shoulders.

"Stick, it's okay!" I cried. "It's me, Rogue. Remember? I . . . I'm sorry for the chestplate . . ."

All I could do was hug her, trying to offer a little comfort. After a moment, she looked up, and it startled me to see that her face was red and splotchy from what had to have been literal weeks of crying . . . and she was covered in scratches and a few rather deep gouges that looked to still be healing.

"Rogue . . . ? Chev's buddy?" A little more than his buddy, I'd say. "Yeah . . . so you heard, huh? Yeah . . . got himself stabbed . . . and I couldn't do anything! I couldn't! I tried, but I let him die! _It's all my fault!_"

I didn't mention that I'd showed up to find him dead among all those other troopers, but I took a deep breath as I hugged her again.

"No, it isn't your fault! It . . . I don't know what it was, but it was certainly not your fault!"

Normally, in stories and holovids, people who blame themselves for a loved one's death come around after a few rounds of someone else telling them it really wasn't their fault. Well, I'll tell you right now that wasn't how it went. She pulled away from me, curling up in that ball again and shaking her head fiercely.

"No . . . no, it _was_. I was shoved into a wall . . . couldn't do anything . . . I should have pulled myself together faster! If I had . . . if I had, Chev wouldn't be dead! Why—why is it always _me_? First Sevvie, now Chev . . . I'm so alone . . . so empty . . . there's nothing . . . nothing, nothing, nothing. All gone, bye-bye!"

My eyebrows shot up as those last words came out as an incoherent slurred mess . . . as if she'd gone insane. And what did she mean, "first Sevvie"? What had happened to him? He couldn't be dead too . . . I didn't bother to ask because she was so miserably crying. I saw the partial (or was it?) insanity . . . I understood it, too, believe it or not. And I couldn't help it when tears started rolling down my cheeks.

"Stick, I—I loved him. He was dearer to me than anything. I know how you feel . . . I'd begged him not to go . . . told him he had a choice . . ."

If I'd hoped that little speech, which was filled with emotion and the semi-revelation of the feelings between Chev and me, would somehow make her "all better," as it were, I was clinging to a false hope. She just shook her head, her matted and sand-encrusted black hair flying wildly, and I bit my bottom lip so hard that I drew blood.

"No choice for the clones . . . no choice, had to go, had to fight, forced to die. All except the dumb ones: the ones who survived." She shuddered somewhat, hugging herself. "Should be dead . . . dead with Sevvie and Chev . . . be happy again . . . no, no, _biiiiiiig_ hole, can't fill it anymore, not till I get out! Be free birdie! Be free!"

It broke my heart to see her like that . . . and it broke my heart to know that we'd lost Sevvie, too. But this wasn't the Stick I knew. The Stick I knew would look danger in the face and _laugh_. The Stick I knew thought nothing of beating me into the ground. The Stick I knew would never have allowed this to take her. She would fight!

And that's when it occurred to me that a fight was the only way I could get her to see reason. She was a soldier . . . and soldiers fight. I'd noticed that years before, whenever she'd fight on Kamino, she'd always seem as if it just came naturally to throw punches and uppercuts. It was as if she was perfectly centered whenever she was fighting. If I was going to bring her back before this insanity got the better of her, I'd have to suck it up and beat her up. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and threw and open-palm smack across her face. Hearing my gauntlet crack across her skin made my ears ring, but I sat back and gave a cocky smirk.

"Aww, c'mon!" I taunted. "You call yourself an ARC, yet you can't even fight lil' ol' me? I doubt you could even take me!" I smacked her again, this time across the other cheek. Frankly, there was a part of me that was feeling pretty good about finally being able to get a few licks in on her. "Ohh, this is just too _easy_!"

She grew startled by my continued smacking, and I saw in her eyes a smolder of delusion that burst into that familiar angry flame. It was the flame I'd seen in her eyes the first time we ever fought, and my heart rose with the hope that I'd be able to pull her out of this. I had to. Apart from Boba, she was the only friend I had in the galaxy.

"You _dare_ mess with me?!" she growled, her eyes narrowing. "You're gonna be in a whole mess of trouble!"

Excellent. Trouble was what I wanted in this case. She launched her feet out against me, throwing me back as she leaped to her feet. I skittered backwards before rolling into a crouch, and for a moment, I flashed back to our first fight: her in that armor, me in my civvies, the two of us in her barracks, having it out. For a split second, it was as if the sandy planet we were on suddenly became the pristine white barracks of Kamino.

"_Me?_ _Trouble?_" I chuckled. "Heh. I'm more trouble than you'd give me, though I'd like to see you try!"

That sounded all too familiar. I just sat there for a moment, my fingers flexing. I could feel my knife's blade scraping against the inside of its sheath on the underside of my arm.

"What, you're just going to stand there?!"

Apparently, she was. But then again, there was a determined smirk on her face as she gently twitched her hand, calling me forward. It was Rule One: "Always wait for your target." I knew it like the back of my hand, as I knew she did. The thing was, I wasn't in this for survival . . . not exactly. I was in this to get her mind back on track and save her from this grief-induced madness. I slowly crept to the side, keeping my eye on her at all times. When I'd made a near complete circle, I lunged, digging my knee into Stick's back and taking her to the ground. Once I had her down, I grabbed her right arm and twisted it, pinning it against her backplate.

"Rule Seventy-two: Never let them take your back!"

Almost immediately, she reached back with her free left hand and grabbed my collar, flipping me forward onto my stomach. Ooh, she was going to try the same thing. In a split-second, she had one knee in the small of my back and both of my arms twisted around, pinned tightly under her firm grip.

"Rule Forty-three: Always grab both arms!" she retorted.

That got a grin out of me, because I felt like bringing the beast out in Stick was having a good effect on her.

"Ohh, you are _good_," I said, smiling slyly.

I grunted before bucking, drawing my knees up beneath myself as I sent Stick sailing backwards onto her back. Before she could get up, I made a mad dash of sorts at her and straddled her, pinning her arms to the ground and digging my heels into the ground so I would stay motionless.

"Had enough yet, eh?" I asked, digging the heels of my hands into her wrists.

"Not just yet!" she returned, rocking back and driving her boots into my gut again.

I slid across the ground, smearing reddish dust all over my black armor plates. I just let myself lie there for a moment, either because I really was stunned or just needed a minute to get my breath back. I looked up to see Stick's eyes gleaming and narrow. Yeah, that was the Stick I knew. That was the ARC I knew was in her somewhere. Exhaling heavily, I pushed myself up and dropped into a low stance, curling my hands into fists.

"Then if you're not done, come on; let's get at it! Or are you _scared_ of me?"

I'd been meaning to taunt her into running me, but she squared her shoulders and shot me an ultimatum I'd never in a million years have expected.

"Fear can be your tool," she said. "To say you're afraid . . . that means you're a smart soldier and you can use your fear to your advantage."

We began to circle each other, and her eyes never wavered. She bored holes through me with those fiery eyes that I hadn't thought possible. _That_ was Mando blood. If anyone deserved to be called a _Mando'ad_ and rightly so, it was she. I was just a half-breed, not even fully Mando. I felt . . . well, _inferior_ as she continued.

"To say that you're not afraid means your fear's getting after you, taking you for a ride. Your fear uses you."

Why did she sound so much like a Jedi all of a sudden? That part confused me, but I nodded in agreement.

"Or maybe you're saying you're not afraid when you really aren't. It's a funny thing, fear. Sometimes it'll make you absolutely cold and numb, and other times it'll add such a fire to your bones that it's as if somebody pumped you full of stims." We kept circling, keeping our gazes level, and never letting our guard down. "That's part of what makes a Mandalorian. Even _we_ fear, Stick. Only non-humans don't. Remember, you and I are just alike . . . except I can kick your butt."

That last statement was intended to lure her back into the fight so I could keep her on her toes. As long as she was either fighting or anxiously awaiting a fight, she would stay sane. So I had to keep her sane. Believe it or not, I _did_ know what I was doing. Mostly.

"Ever used your Mando blood against your enemies?" I asked her.

Always," she replied, her eyes flaming with pride. "I always fight with my heart; there's no other way to do it. Impossible to make it impersonal when they're right up in your face; we can't be like Jedi. My heart is my fire; the brighter it burns, the harder I fight!"

"Now, that's the most eloquent way I've ever heard it put," I agreed with a nod. I came to a near-halt, tensing every muscle in my body and arching my back before rolling my shoulders backward, readying myself for more combat. "So you're just going to stand there and not test it out?! Pfft. Mandalorians do _not_ step down from a challenge!"

"Then you're going to regret it!" she cried, balling her fists.

Like a rocket, she lunged at me and brought her fists crashing down against my chestplate as her boots kicked out and made hard contact with my knees. The only things protecting those thin bones from the force of the kick were my sturdy plastoid knee plates. Nevertheless, I heard something crack. It wasn't bone, since I didn't feel pain, so I figured it was my knee plates—which I'd already replaced about fifteen times since I got my armor years ago. The impact sent me to the ground, and I quickly rolled away, coming up under the ARC-170's nose.

"Do you remember our first fight?" I asked, the memories flashing through my mind even as I spoke. "Remember how you completely whupped my _shebs_? Heh. Good times. Of course . . ." I stepped closer. ". . . these are good times, too!"

With that, my fist shot out into her chin, but Stick bent away and back-flipped, driving those vicious boots of hers into _my_ poor chin as her hand went for her sword, drawing it faster than I'd ever seen. Sunlight glinted off the metallic blade, and that was all I saw as the impact of her boots on my jaw made me black out for a moment. I went down, cradling my chin in my hand, knowing fully that the blood was dripping through my fingers and down onto my chestplate, staining those _v_'s red. Yeah, I knew it was the second time I'd had my chin busted by her, but this time it was for a better reason than simple suicidal inclinations. Nevertheless, it _hurt_, and I wondered if she hadn't cracked some bones. In fact, I was certain she had . . . or at least put a hairline fracture in my chin. I glared up, breathing heavily, and my knife dropped into my hand as I flicked my wrist.

"Like I said. I got my _shebs_ absolutely kicked. But since you're going to play it that way . . ."

Her grip on her sword tightened as she pulled one hand away from its hilt and spread it flat, fingers curled slightly. I knew she was preparing her defenses for when I ran her, and I tilted my head as I flexed my grip around my knife.

"Oh, come _on_," I chuckled. "You think I'm gonna be _jare'la_ enough to run you like I did last time? Please. I made a complete _ordinii_ out of myself right in front of _Jang'buir_ and Skirata the last time I tried running you. Nuh-uh. This time, I'm waiting right here. But if _you'd_ like to run me . . ."

I smirked tauntingly at her, but that smirk faded as her eyes flashed and her hands and feet started moving. I felt my heart sink to the soles of my boots as I watched her begin to _dance_. But the thing was, it wasn't just any dance. By mentioning Skirata, I'd jogged her memory to the dance he'd taught every clone he ever trained: the _Dha Werda Verda_. I started, for it seemed as if she believed there really were dozens of similarly armored troopers surrounding her on whose armor plates she was beating out the rhythm when in reality she was all alone. That fire was still in her eyes, but they were quickly slipping back into a haze of delusion, stealing her from that brief time of sanity. I felt my stomach tighten as I realized that neither words nor fighting would be able to get her focused enough to hear reason. My fist clenched around my knife as I looked at her.

"Stick," I whispered, knowing she wasn't listening, "I hadn't wanted to do this, but it's the only way I'll ever get you calm enough . . . I'm sorry, _vod'ika_."

I sighed heavily with regret and whispered an apology as I ran at her, taking a moment to wrench away her shoulder guard before I drove my knife into her shoulder. I felt literally sick as I saw that blood gush up from the wound _I_ had caused, and I knelt at her side as she toppled, clutching my blade. The scream that came out of her was enough to make my heart nearly freeze, and I watched in anguish as her eyes fell back toward that fuzzy, deluded dullness like they'd first been when she saw my chestplate. It seemed that she completely forgot her sword lying nearby in the dirt as she took a breath and wrested my knife from her shoulder. She turned and shot a pained look at me, her eyes brimming with tears, and I felt such a wave of guilt as I realized that my actions had had the unintended effect . . . That insanity was back in full force, and I feared I'd lost her for good.

"Chev . . ." she whimpered, eyes locked onto my chestplate. "Chev, I never did anything to you . . . Why . . . It hurts, it _hurts_! Just . . . just end it . . . so I can see them again . . . Please . . . just let it end . . ."

She clamped a hand around her shoulder, sobbing so pitifully that it—almost literally—broke my heart. If she'd been the _real_ Stick, she never would have even flinched. In fact, she would have come at me and returned the blow. Quickly, I straddled her, grabbed her shoulders, and gave her a good shake.

"Listen to me Stick!" I cried. "_Listen!!_ Oh, frack, you're not gonna until I can convince you I'm not Chev, that I'm just wearing his chestplate now, are you?!"

Quickly, I leaped up, wrenching the chestplate away as I darted back to the _Slave I_ and grabbed my old one and snapped it into place. I caught a glimpse of Boba as I made the change; the poor kid had been hearing the ruckus outside and was looking a bit terrified. I didn't blame him; I didn't feel so good myself. I mean, blood was still seeping out of my throbbing chin and I'd witnessed Stick go from near insanity to normalness and back to complete madness again. I raced back out of the ship, diving onto her.

"Okay, Stick, pay attention. It's me, Rogue. Rogue Fett. Remember me? We used to have dinner with Ace and his gang, remember? Remember my armor?" I rapped a fist against the silver and black plates, staring down at her. "I'm gonna get you some help because you've gone completely out of your head. I don't know what happened to you, but you're scaring the _osik_ out of me, girl!"

Something went off in her eyes, and they flickered somewhat as if she was wavering between complete, irreversible insanity and complete recognition of me. She quickly shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

"He died . . . I couldn't . . . couldn't stop him . . . couldn't stop . . . emerald . . . emerald light, flashing down . . . NO, CHEV, NO! No . . . no, don't leave . . . don't leave me . . . Damn . . . damn creation . . . hate him . . . stop him . . . murdered Chev . . ."

She started twisting and thrashing violently; Force knew what was going on in that whacked-out head of hers. But whatever was going on in there was causing her obvious torment. So, I responded the one way I knew how to make myself heard: I started screaming.

"STICK! YOU'VE GOTTA LISTEN TO ME! WHAT AM I GONNA HAVE TO DO TO GET YOU TO LISTEN?! FRACK IT ALL, STICK! YOU _HAVE_ TO LISTEN TO ME!!" I shook her again, more violently this time. My hair tumbled into my eyes as I smacked her across the jaw, trying to get her to come around. "C'mon, Stick. I'm not gonna leave you here to flip out! You're still useful! The Republic still needs you! Now C'MON!"

"Gone . . . it's all over . . . there's nothing, nothing for me . . .why go back . . . I just stay here and die . . . die like all the others, far away from the war . . . No war for me, no sir . . . No sir . . . NO, SIR, I WILL NOT FIGHT! No . . . no, sir . . . no . . . I won't let go . . . won't . . . can't." She moaned and twisted again, but her eyes flickered, almost clear. It was as if it was a signal for me that the Stick I knew was still in there somewhere and I just had to keep trying. "Rogue . . . Rogue, help . . . I can't . . . can't get out . . . fog, fog everywhere . . . gotta fight . . .won't fight, no, no, no, won't fight, nuh-uh, I'll stay here, high and dry . . . safe . . . no blasters, no sabers, no droids . . . nothing, nothing, nothing . . ."

Whatever hope I'd had of bringing her back faded as she slipped away again, lost in the storm of insanity that raged within her. Okay, so I got scared. I got _really_ scared. I wasn't gonna come so close to bringing the Stick I knew back only to have her slide right out of my grip again. She _was_ my sister, after all. I had to help her.

"Well, at _least_ you know my name!" I cried. "But c'mon, Stick . . . TRY! _Try_ to come back! You _know _Chev wouldn't want you to be like this! If you care anything for his memories, you're gonna try, and you're gonna haul your butt back to this universe!"

I'll admit, I couldn't help it if I was screaming like a madwoman grappling with my own form of insanity. Seeing Stick like that gave me this tingling urge to just shake her out of her madness and bring her back. I wanted my friend, okay?! The thing was, I was so off my rocker trying to get her to come around that I didn't notice how she shivered as she heard my words. It was like she understood me even through the madness. She twitched again.

"But . . . it's my fault. I—I couldn't do anything about it. I could have saved him; he could have gotten away had I moved faster . . . It's all my fault . . . guilty as charged, death sentence awaits, mm-hmm . . ." I watched her eyes slide a bit out of focus again, but she quickly shook her head and gripped my shoulder almost as if I was the only thing she could cling to that would keep her from sliding back into that insanity. "Rogue . . . Rogue, I can't go back. I ran; they won't take me back! I'm as good as dead; at best, it means a memory wipe and a kick in the rear down to the trooper corps . . . march left, right, aim shoot, always the same . . . no change . . ."

Poor girl. She was absolutely hopeless and so convinced that they'd either court-martial and execute her or send her down to the regular troopers to become (and this is a term I despise, mind you) cannon fodder. I grabbed her shoulder as tightly as she was grabbing mine, mentally pleading with her to keep it together. She had to.

"No," I said, "they'll take you back. They wouldn't waste a good set of genes like yours. You know they wouldn't. Don't ever think you're worthless like that."

She shook her head and sighed heavily.

No . . . no, they won't take me. I bet they've been looking for a reason to lose me . . . and now they've got one: breaking down, unstable, can't afford losses . . . no more Stick, nope, not anymore . . ."

I rolled my eyes and glared hard at her.

"You just shut up and listen to yourself! You keep acting like this, and they _will_ kick you all the way down to the white jobs with the rest of those sniveling _hut'uune_! I know you're in pain; do you think I'm not, either?! But I know that somewhere in there is the Stick I know and consider my friend!"

She closed her eyes, still shaking her head, and I realized that her grip on my shoulder was loosening. That was when I remembered the deep gouge I'd put in her shoulder that was still bleeding quite heavily.

_Oh, no,_ I thought, fumbling in the pouches of my belt for a syringe of bacta. _C'mon, Stick, stay with me a bit longer . . ._

I couldn't help but realize that I was literally killing her. _I'd_ put that wound in her shoulder; _I'd_ failed to bandage it up again. That made my stomach practically burn as I hurried for that bacta. I was almost a nervous wreck as I grabbed for it, tearing the protective packaging away with my teeth and spitting it across the sand.

"Not much left . . ." she whispered. "Come sooner next time . . . head pounding like a hurricane . . . can't stay up much longer . . ."

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry; don't die on me now! _

"R—Rogue . . ."

_Dammit, hold on! Just a little longer, please!_

I finally got control of my fingers and jabbed the needle into her shoulder, squeezing the warmth and healing of the bacta into that nasty gash. No longer was I screaming frantically at her, trying to get her to see reason. Now I was just worried if she'd make it out alive. If she didn't . . . it'd be all my fault. That was something I couldn't live with. Something in the back of my mind came back to the front . . . a name. I was taken back to a time, many years before, when Boba ran anxiously up to me and excitedly informed me that he had met a girl trooper. At the time, I'd thought he was making it up . . . another of his practical jokes or an imaginary friend. He said he and _Jang'buir_ had given her a name. When it first happened, I couldn't believe that he was telling the truth, but now, leaning over Stick and trying to keep her alive, I did believe it. My only problem was . . . what was the name?! Oh, why did my memory have to draw a blank at _that_ moment?! Any time but then would have been more opportune! I just had to find the letter it began with, and then maybe, just _maybe_, I could figure it out. I quickly skimmed the alphabet, hunting for anything I could find as I injected more bacta into her and pressed my hands over her shoulder to slow the bleeding while the healing fluid kicked in. And then I started going through the Mando'a vocabulary. I don't know whether it was the Force, or fate, or just dumb luck, but one word popped into my mind: _laar_. Mando'a for _song_. And that triggered something.

"Oh, come on, Larra," I begged, my voice quiet. "Hold on just a bit longer, okay? Let me get this shoulder of yours patched up . . . I'm sorry I had to hurt you . . ."

She froze and cracked an eye open at me. I looked up and found that her eyes were looking a little clearer . . . as if my using that name had jogged something in that somewhat unstable mind of hers.

"Larra . . . my name . . ." she whispered, blinking. I didn't know whether to be more grateful that she was coming around or that the bacta was finally getting to work and her flesh was knitting back together. "My . . . name . . . Larra Fett . . . Larra . . . I am . . . Larra. I . . . _am_ Larra . . . I will . . . not . . . go back . . . I will . . . _fight_!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth, and I knew it wasn't against any physical pain. She was trying her hardest to force that insanity away, to make it stay gone. I gripped her hand so hard that my arm began to tremble. In the back of my mind, something told me I'd have to start calling her by her name instead of her old nickname, but I ignored it. I'd deal with names later. Right now, she was on her way back, and I had to stick around and help!

"That's it . . . c'mon . . ." I said, "You fight. You do what you do best. Make the name of Fett mean more than just bounty hunters! Bring some substance to it; make it something to be really, truly proud of! C'mon, _ner vod_. Just fight."

"Can't . . . can't let them down," she answered, her voice trembling. "Can't let Chev and Sevvie down. Gotta . . . fight. Gotta . . . stay . . . sane . . ."

Slowly, an inch at a time, she started working her way up. First she came to her knees, then slowly, hesitantly, to her feet. Her fists curled into tight little balls as she struggled to keep herself under control. I couldn't help but grin; she wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

"I am Larra Fett!" she cried. "I will fight, and I . . . will . . . succeed!"

I felt like giving a loud cry of either "_Kandosii!_" or "_Oya!_" to show my support, but I instead rose to my feet with her, gripping her shoulders. I wasn't sure whether I was pulling her to her feet or she was pulling me, so let's just say we were pulling each other. Two Fett women who had lost the same people, and that meant we were together in this. We were sisters.

"They'll be so proud of you to know you're fighting!" I enthused. "No, don't let them down. Hold on to whatever you can."

That was almost the same thing I'd told Boba the day we buried our father. Funny how things come full circle like that, isn't it? Well, Larra—formerly known as Stick—looked into my face and squeezed my shoulders in that tight ARC grip of hers.

"I won't make myself be afraid," she said, maybe more to herself to me. "I _will_ hold on . . . I have to. For them. For Chev, for Sevvie, for Ace and Scorch and Sev . . . I have to, and I will!"

I couldn't help myself as I pulled her to her feet and threw my arms around her, cracking a half-grin. I felt the way she tightened at my embrace, but I didn't care. All I cared about was that I had my sister back.

"See, I _knew_ you were in there somewhere!" I said. "Nothing'll ever keep you down."

She forced a smile at me, still looking a bit shaken from her trip through insanity and a bit taken aback by my hug. She shrugged somewhat, glancing away.

"Yeah, well . . . I guess I let Chev's getting stabbed go to my head," she said before sighing. "I just hope the brass don't give me that boot . . ."

"Nah, they won't," I replied, trying to keep her hopes up . . . and mine. Somehow, I was scared that maybe they _would_ kick her out. But I was something of a firm believer in optimism, so I decided to hold to the hope that they'd keep her on. "Y'think they'd kick out somebody like you? Did you even _see_ the damage you guys dealt to those Sep droids?!"

I tilted my head, smirking at her and thinking back to those heaps of scrap metal I'd found on Geonosis. Who knew how many dozens of droids had been blown to smithereens by some of her precious grenades? But then I kept thinking despite my preferences, and my face fell slightly.

"Oh, uh . . . I know how you felt, losing Chev and all . . . So I guess we have a little somethin' else in common."

I forced a chuckle and pressed a hand to my chin, which was still throbbing like mad and still dripping a little blood. Yep . . . I had a small break in the bone. It wasn't bad enough to throw me to the ground, sobbing. After all, I was a bit tougher than that. But it still hurt like heck and made me grimace. Larra pulled a syringe of bacta out of her own belt and flipped it to me, and I gratefully jabbed it into my chin. It was a little strange; I mean, I'd never stuck a needle into that part of me before. Usually it was in my arm or something. Anyway, as I tended my one injury, Larra looked over at me and crossed her arms.

"Uh, listen . . . Thanks. I needed that . . . a lot."

I prodded at my chin as the bone and skin knitted back together and looked at her.

"What, me beating you into the ground—or trying to? Hey, no problem . . . I think we both needed it. Fighting keeps us sane. We're soldiers. It's what we do."

She nodded and exhaled heavily, appearing for the first time more tired and in need of a good night's sleep than anything.

"Well, might as well get back," she said finally, looking around. "How long has it been since . . . you know what?"

Yeah, I knew _what_. "What" was better known to the rest of the galaxy as the Battle of Geonosis and to the clones who fought there as Geo. But in my case—as well as Larra's—, "what" meant more than just a battle. But you knew that because I've been telling you and angsting about it ever since it happened. Anyway, I nodded and turned toward the _Slave I_, snapping out my black and silver chestplate so I could replace it with Chevron's. To tell the truth, it felt more natural to wear his since I'd been doing it for so long. It was like the ol' black-and-silver was a strange piece of plastoid. I disappeared for a minute to assure Boba that the situation was under control as I snapped Chev's plate back into place and stepped back out.

"I can give you a lift to Kamino if you want," I said to Larra. "I mean, I was going there anyway. I was going to pick up a few things of _Jang'buir_'s . . . You know I lost him, too."

Her face went completely frozen, and something told me that her memories of my surrogate father weren't as nice as mine. All she said was a strained "I know" before she shook her head and started tossing her stuff into the ARC-170's cargo hatch. I knew something was wrong from the cold expression on her face. Something had happened either on Geonosis or elsewhere that had hardened her heart against _Jang'buir_, but I didn't let it bother me . . . not really. I knew she'd been through a lot, so there were a lot of things I was willing to make allowances for.

"Kind of you to offer," she said, "but you don't have to bother yourself. I can get there all right."

I turned, brushing my chin-length hair from my face and arching an eyebrow at her. Suddenly, I had the distinct feeling that the gray ARC chestplate with its bloodstained chevron was standing out in stark contrast with the rest of my armor.

"You sure?" I asked. "It's no trouble at all, since I was going there myself. Besides, uh . . . I think I'd like the company . . . at least for a little bit."

I looked at her, and I knew it seemed like I was pleading her to come along. I couldn't help it. I mean, I felt very lonely . . . and desperate. To say I felt vulnerable, as well, would not be an understatement . . . not by a long shot. Larra tilted her head at me, confusion written all over her face, and I knew she'd seen those weaknesses in my stance and body language. Could I help it? I'd been cooped up with my brother for a year. I needed a friend. She gave me something of a "look," and I felt a little guilty about looking so darn desperate.

"Well . . ." she said, "I certainly can't leave this fighter out here to rust . . . But then again . . . I certainly could."

I couldn't help but grin as she dragged her gear back out of the fighter. I had to turn away so she wouldn't see it, but needless to say, I _was_ glad she was coming along. Frankly, I was lonely. I really did need somebody other than Boba to talk to. I turned to see her shoot a strange glance at the _Slave I_ and murmur a "Hmm." I just shrugged and grabbed her shoulder, ushering her toward it.

"I've cleaned up a little bit inside," I said, "so if you're expecting dirt and grime, you probably won't see a whole lot. But it's just me and Boba in there . . . So we make do. There oughtta be leg room enough in there for you . . . somewhere . . ."

I shook my head and headed up the loading ramp, wishing with everything that we could sell the _Slave_ and buy a ship that wasn't so lacking in room. Thing was, if we did that, then Boba and I would lose our last ties to _Jang'buir_. But then I remembered the nightly remembrance I whispered each night as I curled up to sleep, and I remembered that Boba kept that old helmet nearby in the cockpit. Sometimes he'd toss it up onto the dash and study it for a while, but he was always very careful to fetch it down again before we made a landing. Me, I was always careful to tell him so he _could_ grab it.

"_Bo'ika_? Ready to go?" I called as Larra and I entered the ship.

"Yeah," Boba replied, dashing out. "Who's coming?"

Behind me, I heard Larra come to a grinding halt as her eyes locked onto Boba, and there was a bit of staring between them before Boba beamed at me. His beaming grin quickly morphed into a slow, know-it-all smirk, however.

"See? I _told_ ya there was a girl in the troops." Ooh, the way he said that made me want to absolutely strangle him. He said it so . . . so uppity. And _that_ got me.

"I know, _vod'ika_," I sighed. "How do you think I knew her name enough to snap her out of that insanity?"

Bam.

Boba stared at me for a minute as if he was trying to process the fact that I had not completely ignored him all those years ago when he informed me of his discovery. It was _my_ turn to smirk, so I cocked my head sideways before snickering and heading up to the cockpit. Once there, I lowered myself in, pulling myself down onto my back via assistance from a pair of handles near my head. I nearly hit my head on the Force-blame thing . . . _That_ was something I hadn't done in a while.

"Force, whatever possessed _Jang'buir_ to buy a ship like this . . ." I growled, meaning its horizontal landing and vertical flying habits. "This business of taking off while lying on my back is getting to be pretty darn irritating."

"Well, it certainly provides good warning for bad weather," Larra returned, deadpan, as she came to the cockpit opening and crouched down to look inside.

Boba chuckled at her sarcasm, and even I cracked a grin. Yep, she was feeling more like herself; that was easy to see. Apparently our smacking each other around had been as I intended . . . It had been better for us than just working off some excess steam. I muttered something about bad weather as I punched Kamino's coordinates into the navicomputer and strapped myself in.

"Hold on, folks!" I called. "We're going vertical!"

Despite the pain in the _shebs_ it was to always enter and exit the cockpit on my back, making that mid-air transition from horizontal to vertical was always insanely fun. I mean, depending on how fast you do it (and I was partial to taking off quickly), it was either a slow turnaround or a lightspeed-fast twist that was almost enough to make you lose your cookies. I personally preferred the adrenaline rush from a fast takeoff. Dare I even mention that Boba did, too? And I knew Larra was tough . . . so I opted for a cookie-losing takeoff that day. Meh heh.

I wheeled the _Slave_ around and drove it into the sky, and behind me, I heard Larra skitter backwards against a wall, grappling for support. Boba was trying to smother a laugh at her unfamiliarity with the shifting terrain (so to speak) as he just grabbed hold of an above-head bar until we were completely vertical, which was when he crawled into the cockpit and strapped himself in beside me. Larra was behind us, straddling the open cockpit hatch and using it as a seat.

"Uncomfortable indeed," she grumbled in reference to our rather rapid takeoff. Me, I was just chuckling at the rapid whirl of motion.

"You'll get used to it," Boba informed her with a knowing grin.

"I just hope this is my only time here."

"So do I," I agreed, turning and looking at her. "Why? Because if you're here any other time, you're probably a bounty we're hauling back."

I grinned to show I was joking. If there was one thing I would never do, it was turn my friends in for a bounty. A short while later, when we were out in space, I reached over for my favorite little button, and we dashed off into hyperspace. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy about returning to the ol' stompin' grounds. Let's face it: Larra was in for it. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I just _knew_ it.

Let's put it this way: I had a bad feeling about this.


	17. Lar’s Court Martial

**Chapter Seventeen – Lar's Court Martial**

Yep, I was right in being nervous about returning to Kamino. Did you blame me? There was a _war_ on, folks. A big, honkin', kriffin' _war_. I was positive that any of the troopers I'd grown up with were either deployed on some far-off world or dead, like Chev and Sevvie were; well, at least like Chev was. I still didn't know for certain about Sevvie. I mean, Larra had been a little off her rocker . . . not many people trust a half-insane person. Well . . . _I_ would. But then again, that could just be because there have been times when I've felt half-insane myself.

We all braced ourselves for the horizontal landing on the _Slave I_'s old pad. I hadn't even had to identify myself to the guys up at Space Traffic Control. Heh, like I was in the mood to go through the formality of saying "_Slave I_ to Kamino Space Traffic Control; Rogue Fett piloting. Permission to land requested." They just jumped on my comm and said "You're free to land" before letting me go on my way. I couldn't help but feel that it was a bit of a holdover from _Jang'buir_'s influence. If _he_ had been so tough, why mess with his children—oh, yeah, and _only_ an ARC, I ask you?

But that wasn't the only thing I couldn't help but feel. I felt like something big was about to happen as I peered out at the dark storm clouds, and one glance at Larra told me she was feeling the same thing, too. Yeah, I was nervous. Why shouldn't I be? There was the looming possibility that they'd take my best friend away from me! Who was to know that they weren't about to take her by the hand, lead her out back, stick a blaster to her temple, and blow her brains out? _I_ certainly didn't. Who was to know what they'd do to her for going AWOL for so long _and_ going a bit . . . unstable? Can you tell I was putting that as gently as possible? Yeah, huh?

Larra was almost out of the ship before the rest of us were, dropping down into the cargo hold to grab her gear. I followed her, watching as she picked up her helmet and snapped it into place. She turned when she noticed me behind her.

"Well . . ." she began, and I heard anxiety in her voice. "Shall we go see what I've got in store?"

"Guess so," I replied. "Want me to come with you?"

Not waiting for an answer, I stepped into the cargo hold and headed for a large trunk stashed in a corner. Cracking the lock, I shoved the lid back and dug out a familiar white helmet. I turned and walked to her, pressing it into her hands as I bit back tears. Handing that helmet over literally felt like I was handing her a piece of my heart. Sappy, I know, but that was what it felt like.

"Here," I said, handing it to her. "It's . . . it's Chev's. You can keep it if you want."

She nodded slowly and took the helmet, cradling it to her chest and gazing down on it. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She'd lost as much as I had.

"Thanks," she murmured. "And yeah . . . I wouldn't mind some backup."

I nodded as we left the ship. I told Boba to stay where he was and that we wouldn't be long. He protested, naturally, saying he was big enough to come along. But I just shot him one firm look, and he complied willingly lest he find himself on the receiving end of one my . . . erm . . . disciplinary actions. The thing I noticed as Larra and I left the ship was that she left Chev's helmet onboard . . . as if she was either expecting to come back for it later or as if she thought I needed it more. Well, I didn't. I had his chestplate, the memories of him, his smile, the glitter in his eyes . . . And like a "regular" girl, I still had a pretty darn clear recollection of our first kiss. Yeah, I got a little teary-eyed to think of it, but I ignored it as we entered the familiar white halls. We attracted more than a few odd glances; after all, it was me, wearing only my armor and not my helmet, and a fully-armored ARC who stood several inches taller than I. And then there was the fact that Larra's armor was so distinctive that everyone knew her. And, well, my chestplate attracted its fair share of double-takes since it _obviously_ didn't match the rest of my armor. Larra and I just squared our shoulders and kept going down the halls until a trooper of the "regular" variety stopped us. He looked Larra over with an I-know-better-than-you attitude, and I felt myself growing irritated toward him. These newer clones were so snot-nosed and uppity toward those of us who'd been around longer. Give 'em a set of fancy armor that looks like they're wearing white plastoid diapers (but don't tell them I said that) and a DC-15 rifle, and they think they're invincible. I thought that just Larra's presence should tell them a thing or two; she _survived_ that big, honkin' war I was telling you about. Sure, it was only by the skin of her teeth, but she'd come back so they could throw her back into combat if they so chose.

"So, Tau-000 has come back to us," the trooper stated, sounding amused. I felt like hitting him. So what if doing that called security? He was a punk that needed to be slapped back down, and I was just the one to do it. "I hope you know you're in for it. The higher-ups want to see you."

No, really? Why, thank you for that news flash, Captain Obvious. I glanced over to Larra and heard a faint snarl come out of her helmet. Her inner ARC was back and in full force. Besides, I knew how she despised to be referred to as a _number_. Wouldn't you, were you she? I knew that if those blasted _kaminiise_ had begun calling _Jang'buir_, me, and Boba "Fett-001," "Fett-002," and "Fett-003," respectively, we would have been having sushi for dinner.

"Yeah, joy, I'm back," Larra sighed. "What do they want?"

"To see you, of course," the trooper replied as I rolled my eyes. We know _that_, kid. Tell us something we don't! "They'd like to talk to you about your going AWOL for a year."

"They gonna boot her?" I asked.

"You'll have to ask them that."

This guy just kept getting snarkier and snarkier . . . and I _hate_ snarky people. There's this one reporter on the HoloNet news channel that just _gets_ me. Ooh, I could strangle her . . . Anyway, ignoring that rant on obnoxious news reporters, I growled slightly, causing the young trooper to back away somewhat. Victory at last. That was probably the first time he'd come in contact somebody actually able to beat the kriffin' _osik_ out of him. I heard Larra chuckle lightly before she shook her head.

"A year . . . ? Great Force . . ." She scratched the back of her neck, exhaling heavily before shrugging. "Fine, lead the way, hotshot. Unless you plan on keeping me here much longer . . ."

The trooper muttered a disagreeing remark as he shot her an odd glance. I couldn't help but sigh as I wondered just what would happen to Larra when the brass found out she'd been practically insane for a year. It would either be down to the trooper corps with the rest of the white jobs or out of the GAR for good. Neither option was pleasant. The trooper led us through the stark white corridors and through several turbolifts before we arrived at a large conference room on one of the higher levels. I'd never been up there; it was so unfamiliar that I doubted anyone else had, either. Well, except these brass . . . and maybe Kenobi . . . and Skirata and _Jang'buir_ . . . Okay, so perhaps a _lot_ of people had been up there! But how was I to know?

The trooper "escorted" us to the door and ushered Larra in, but when I tried to follow, he put up his hand to stop me. Mm, not good enough, _burc'ya_. Nobody tries to keep me from my friends. Besides, would _he_ really be able to stop me? If I were unarmed and in civvies . . . probably not. It might just be a little easier for him. But I wasn't, so I brought my fist up under his chin, stroking it with my gloved index finger as I leveled him with an icy glare. It didn't matter that he was several inches taller than I was . . . What mattered was that he nearly wet his armor when he saw the bright, blinding light reflecting off the blade of my hidden knife. I swear, it's days like that one that make me feel so . . . alive, powerful, unstoppable . . . Ooh, _yeah_.

Needless to say, our dear trooper friend allowed me to pass, so I followed Larra through a series of doors into the conference room. I stayed a good bit behind, but my heart sank when I saw who was in that room. The jury, as it were, was comprised mainly of Jedi generals and the higher-up ARC captains, but there were several trainers . . . including one face I'd longed _not_ to see in the capacity of passing judgment on Larra: Kal Skirata. I couldn't help but feel like Larra and I had been . . . betrayed, somehow. But then I saw the pain in his eyes. He wasn't enjoying this any more than we were.

Larra crossed the room to the center, saluting, and I marched right up to her side, taking a position about a foot to her side and two feet behind her. I was _not_ going to let them get away with dishonorably discharging her. I'd fight all the way.

"Tau-000, present," Larra murmured, and I heard the pain in her voice. She hated that number with everything she was.

"I hope you know why we've called you here," one of the brass said, his voice low and filled with venom. How could anyone sound that . . . hateful? He continued, saying aloud what neither Larra nor I would stoop to say. "We've called you here to answer for your inexcusable absence . . . without leave."

He and the others all stared at her with icy glares—all except Kal. (Yes, that's the first time I've referred to him as "Kal" and not simply "Skirata." That's because he was practically a father to Larra and every clone under his tutelage.) I noticed the way he looked at Larra with pain and sympathy—perhaps even a bit of pity—and I felt grateful that he was on our side, so to speak.

"I'm sorry you had to have such a rough time," he said to her. "But I see you've brought Rogue with you."

I straightened and placed one gauntleted hand on my hip as I shot him a glare.

"She didn't 'bring' me, Kal," I said. "I came along of my own free will. I just hope you all know what you're doing, and I pray you have the sense not to kick out a fine soldier like her."

Go me, being the heroine and making an ultimatum on my friend's behalf. But it must not have had my intended effect, for the brass just looked at each other and shook their heads slightly. Oh, _haar'chak_. I knew what that meant. They were already choosing troopers for her firing squad. The brass who had spoken to her originally leaned across the wide, arcing table and looked hard at Larra.

"Perhaps you'd better explain what caused you to go AWOL for a year, Tau-Zero."

Larra took a deep, slow breath, and I reached out to squeeze her shoulder supportively. She clenched her fists for a moment before nodding.

"I left because one of my training friends—Theta-636—was killed . . . right before my eyes. I lost it; I became . . . emotionally unstable. I had to leave to get things sorted out in my mind. I'll . . . _spare_ you the nasty details."

I couldn't help but chuckle, for I knew that last statement had been meant to strike fear into the hearts of the brass. That was why it had been so sharp, so cunningly sarcastic. Oh, I couldn't have done better myself. The brass exchanged a few glances, and one of the Jedi stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"If she went unstable . . . she could potentially fall back into that . . . It could be a liability."

Okay, I lost it. They were actually considering discharging her because she'd had an emotional overload! Yeah, sure, I knew this army was supposed to be free of all those hindering emotions, but they were _human_, after all. If they'd wanted emotionless killing machines, they should've built freakin' _droids_! Or they should've counted on her _human_ nature of mourning lost loved ones! I'd seen other troopers do it while traveling around the galaxy. The "normal" ones who wore the plain armor and carried the plain DC-15 rifles that did it; it was the ones like Larra—those who had actual personalities—that were capable of mourning. So I jumped down the brass's throat, quite angry with their inability to see past the ends of their noses. I'd have thought that a _Jedi_, of all people, would be able to understand! But then again, they wouldn't, would they? Jedi don't believe in forming attachments. Well, frack them.

"You must be out of your skulls!" I shouted. "Kicking out someone like her?! You do, and you'll be losing the best soldier this army ever had!"

"You're out of place!" the first brass barked. "Silence!"

Kal looked at Larra and me both, sighing a bit mournfully.

"I know how you feel, Rogue . . . We just can't have someone who could break down on us again in the ARC corps."

_Haar'chak_, he _didn't_ know how I felt! How could he? I doubted very highly that he'd ever had his best friend kicked out of the military. I growled, rolling my eyes.

"So you're going to just give her the boot and find somebody to replace her, _hoping_ they'll be just as good?!"

"You will be silenced _now_ or we will forcibly remove you!" There was that pompous brass windbag again. I felt my knife nearing my grip. It was all I could do to keep from lunging across the room and cutting a hole in his throat.

"Do it, and I'll have your hides!" I snarled.

I was very nearly ready to dice them all into mincemeat—excluding Kal, of course, since I rather liked him—but Larra reached out her hand and looked back at me for a moment.

"Rogue . . . let _me_ handle this," was all she said.

Reluctantly, I stood down, more than a little amazed at the calmness in her voice. She turned and kept her gaze—and temper, believe it or not—level with the brass as I took a step or two back, trying to force myself to just chill.

"Yes, there's that chance," she admitted. "However, because of Rogue, I've come back only because she made me see reason: the reason being that my training partners wouldn't let me just sit and cry over their fates. If you're going to kick me out, then just get it over with so if can get on with my fracking life."

Well, _there_ was the Stick—Larra—whatever!—I knew. I couldn't help but cheer inwardly, but my cheer quickly faded as Kal looked at me.

"This true, _Ro'ika_?"

I stiffened. No one except _Jang'buir_ and Boba had ever called me that. It didn't really bother me, but . . . it just felt weird. But I supposed that if I ever needed a father, Kal would always be there for me. I nodded.

"I swear it on _Mand'alor_ himself. I had to get into a fist fight with her just to get her to come around. But it worked, and she's here. So what're you going to do?"

"We're going to discuss this for a while," said that vile brass for whom I was beginning to develop a very deep . . . dislike. He motioned to that sissy trooper boy who'd brought us in. "Escort them out, please."

Well, Larra didn't even salute. She just turned on heel and marched out of the conference room, refusing proudly to be "escorted." I did the same, except I shot a cold glare at those _di'kute_ and mentally flipping them a very nasty gesture. Once we were back outside in the hall, Larra heaved a sigh and wrenched her helmet off, revealing the full extent of her anger.

"Fracking brass," she growled. "Can't even see past the ends of their own fracking noses!"

My sentiments exactly. Thank goodness we shared the same opinions on most things!

"You're telling me!" I scoffed, tossing a cold glance back at the cold white door. "I would have thought _Kal_ would have been more understanding! He doesn't even have _any_ idea of what you went through! . . . Or what I went through, for that matter." With a sigh, I turned and sank down onto a bench by the door. "What gives these guys the right?!"

"I have no kriffin' idea," Larra mumbled. "If I didn't feel obligated because of Sevvie and Chev, I swear I'd walk out right now."

"And I'd help you or even go with you. Something way deep down inside me tells me one of those guys is going to need a taste of this someday." I ever so slightly flicked my wrist, and out popped my knife. Oh, baby, did I miss _you_ . . . I sighed and ran my hand along the flat of the blade.

"Or one of _my_ babies," Larra added, reaching back and stroking the hilt of her sword before lightly prodding the bulges in her safety pouches that meant she was carrying grenades . . . and a lot of 'em.

"Nah, grenades are too messy," I chuckled. "Believe me; I know. I had to dig _Jang'buir_ and Chev's graves with explosives . . . Don't even ask how I gathered up all that dirt to fill the holes."

The memory of losing them sent a stabbing pang of sorrow through me, so I quickly fell silent as I sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall. Larra sighed also, running a hand through her pitch-black hair which was just barely shorter than mine.

"Life's already so much different without them," she murmured. "Chev . . . Sevvie . . . without them, there's not much."

I nodded; boy, did I know what she meant. Losing Chev . . . it was like losing a part of _me_. And losing _Jang'buir_ was like being cut completely off from the only family I ever knew . . . severed from my heritage, my people. Something twinged down inside me, reminding me for the hundredth time that I was "only" half-Mando. That was the one thing about me that drove daggers into my stomach. It was the knowing that if I ever married, the Mando blood of my children and their children would eventually be diminished to a near nothing . . . or perhaps even nothing. If _Boba_, on the other hand, grew up to marry a Mandalorian woman, his children would still be full-blooded Mandos, as would his grandchildren if it continued as such. Me . . . I was the last as far as I was concerned. _That_ was depressing.

Maybe I should quit angsting about my bloodlines, though. After all, _"Aliit ori'shya tal'din."_ And I _had_ seen Mandalorians who had no Mando blood in them at all. They just spoke the language, wore the armor, kept the customs . . . all Six Tenets. I kept them too, so perhaps I wasn't the "freak" I sometimes thought myself to be.

Larra and I sat there in that hall for several hours—I don't know how many—until Kal stepped out of that blasted conference room and closed the door behind himself before looking us over. I could tell we looked pretty darn pathetic because his face literally softened.

"You two doin' okay?" he asked quietly.

"Eh, as well as can be expected, I guess," I replied with a half-hearted shrug. "I lost the two most important people in my life a year ago and she's probably about to get booted. Okay, so maybe we're not doing so good."

"As have I, _Kal'buir_," Larra murmured, agreeing to my statement about losing the two most important people in my life. She sighed. "Well, drop the hammer. What's my verdict?"

"Well, it's better than you're thinking," Kal replied. "I convinced them to keep you on—" I straightened at that, insanely excited, but Kal lifted his hand to still me. "—but you're no longer an ARC. Your old designation's been erased."

Larra was no longer an ARC? Ouch; that'd be one heck of a blow. I grimaced and glanced over to her. She was getting visibly angrier by the minute, and I mentally begged her to calm down. Like that did any good. Force knows I'm no Jedi.

"_WHAT?!_"she screeched. "Don't tell me they're sending me back to those _shabla_ white jobs! You know that if I go down to their level I'll run out again, _Kal'buir_, and I ain't kidding!"

Ooh, yeah, she was _really_ getting twirked. This wasn't going over well. But somehow I couldn't see someone as talented and special as Larra going all the way down to the trooper corps. Kal lifted both hands and arched an eyebrow.

"Now hold on. Nobody said you were going down to the trooper corps! You've just been . . . demoted a bit: down to the commandos. You're now RC-1200."

Sweet Force, Larra was a commando! That in itself staggered me. But . . . they'd taken her old number and given her a new one. That got my dander up.

"Her _name_ is Larra, Kal," I informed him.

"I know."

Uh . . . . what? How did he know? Wait one minute . . . He was one of those guys chosen by _Jang'buir_ himself; all the trainers were. So if _Jang'buir_ knew about Larra, then Kal probably did too . . . At that moment, how I wished Jango was still alive. I would have interrogated for hours until I had every question answered. Larra sat back, nodding in something akin to satisfaction . . . but closer to relief.

"Commando . . . Well, at least it ain't too bad. What squad's open to taking me on?"

"We're not entirely sure just yet," Kal replied. "There are several squads that are missing a man and would be more than grateful to have you . . . _Casualties_ of war." He choked on that word. He didn't like it; those were his boys he was talking about. He'd trained dozens of commando squads, or so I'd heard. And he didn't like referring to them as simple numbers or as if they were droids. That was why he either called them by their full title of Republic commando or called them men. He continued. "Another's a full squad who could really use the help. Four aren't always enough for the jobs we send 'em on, poor boys . . . They get it done, but sometimes they come limping back, hardly in one piece."

He winced, thinking it was unnoticeable, but _I_ noticed . . . and I sympathized. "His lads" were just as much mine as they were his. Y'know why? Because I'd spent a lot of time with good ol' Ace and his group. I missed them, to tell the truth. I hadn't seen them in years, and frankly, I was worried about them. I didn't know if they were even still alive anymore because I'd been so out of touch with the army and the war. I slipped off into my thoughts, barely hearing when Larra asked what she was supposed to do until all the little details were worked out. I came back around when Kal said she was free to do whatever she liked, because the wheels in my mind got to turning. I still could use a friend . . . Ooh, this reassignment business was about to work out for everyone involved! I turned quickly to her, beaming.

"Hey, you could come with me and Boba," I suggested, "and maybe even see how a bounty hunter scrapes up enough to keep food in her mouth."

I cracked a grin as Larra's face lit up with a smile I hadn't seen before. She turned back to Kal and jabbed a thumb at me, stating her intentions to "hang with her." Kal agreed to comm us once her transfer came through, and something in his eyes let me know that he'd probably rig it so her transfer would be postponed as long as possible to allow her some time to live a "normal" life. Heh. As if hanging with a bounty hunter and her kid brother was "normal." Oh, Kal, you so funny!

He reached out and squeezed our shoulders, wishing us luck before telling us he'd "see us around." He turned to leave, but I was so overwhelmed by appreciation and . . . well, _love_—the kind like a child has for a close family member—for him that I called to him as he was shuffling off down the hall. He turned, and to show that I still remembered everything, I flicked my wrist and let my knife drop into my hand . . . just as he'd taught me. And you know what? He laughed. _Kal Skirata laughed._ And _I_ had made him.

I beamed happily as I waved and Larra and I turned and headed back through the compound until we reached the barracks which served as the . . . Fett homestead, so to speak. When the door hissed open, I nearly fell over. The place was _exactly_ as it had been left a year before. Extra rifles and other kit were left neatly in their places, and there, on the wall adjacent to the door, was a smudged handprint. It stood out in stark contrast to the highly-polished wall. I had to stifle a cry because I recognized it as Chev's. That print had been put there ever since I dragged him into that corner, lips locked with his . . . just before Geonosis. I'd grabbed him a little too fast, knocking him a bit off balance, and as he reached out for support, that wall was the first thing there. I bit my lip as I hurried past it into the barracks and began hefting the left-behind rifles onto the bunk which had been mine.

"I hadn't thought they'd still be here," I admitted to Larra as she followed me in, eyes wider than usual.

"Those are some _really_ big guns," she replied, staring at them so hard I thought her eyes would pop right out of her skull. "Whoa . . ."

I smirked as she hesitantly reached out to touch one. I didn't mind; all of them, except perhaps a couple of the best, would be sold as soon as I could find a buyer. See, the thing neither she nor Boba knew was that funds were running low. When I'd told her we needed to eat somehow, I hadn't been kidding.

"They're nice, aren't they?" I said, nodding at the growing heap of weaponry on my bed. I picked up the first repeater I'd ever used—way back when I was six—and smiled affectionately at it. "This baby was the first rifle I ever fired . . . when I was the tender age of six. Now, I know that probably doesn't make a huge impression on you, but . . . I was a _wimpy_ six-year-old."

I laughed, and Larra nodded somewhat, thinking back.

"When I was six . . . I think I actually threw my first grenade at that age. Heh. That was _fuuuuun_ . . ."

I grinned as I hefted out a crate of grenades. Yes, you heard right: a _crate_. Thing was, it wasn't a bunch of trays all carefully laid in there. You see, this was _my_ personal stash. The grenades were all tossed together, pins literally bolted in place to keep them from wiggling loose and sending us all to the Outer Rim in random pieces. Larra practically dove into the crate, and I was pretty darn sure she was salivating. Ahh, these demo clones: so practically obsessed when it came to things that went boom and did one heck of a job at it. I couldn't help but grin as she rummaged through them before pulling out several blue-shelled ones with gold _x_'s across them. I'd seen a few like those in her pouches . . . which was precisely why I'd requested some from the quartermasters years ago. Heh, talk about coming full-circle, hey? First I got those grenades because I liked them, having seen them on her, and now she was getting them from me. I offered her a rifle, but she was so taken by the grenades that she refused. Besides, she informed me, she liked her Deece just fine.

I didn't really want to leave the barracks. After all, it'd been my home for ten years. My memories of life before Jango were growing a bit fuzzy, and while I would normally be worried, I didn't care. I shouldered all the rifles, suddenly shocked that they could weigh so much, and I staggered just a faint bit.

"Ready to go?" I asked. "I've got another job lined up . . . if you'd like to help."

"Sure," she replied. "I'd like to see another Fett do her thing. Want some help?"

"Hey, it'd be nice," I nodded as I unloaded some of the rifles onto her. As we walked out to the _Slave I_, I went over my terms of engagement for her. "Here's how bounty hunting works when I'm around. If they're wanted alive, they get taken alive. If they're wanted dead _or_ alive, they get taken alive . . . unless they try to kill me first. If that turns out to be the case, as it does usually, they get killed deader 'n a doornail."

I chuckled as I headed up the loading ramp and tossed the rifles rather unceremoniously into the cargo hold. Larra followed suit, tilting her head with question at my rather . . . "unorthodox" manner of hunting.

"So, alive at all costs unless attacked first . . . Certainly ain't the army life, but I could get used to it . . ."

"Well, not _all_ costs," I said. "Usually—"

I broke off and clapped a hand over my mouth to smother a burst of laughter as Boba appeared in the hold, wearing Chev's helmet. It dwarfed his head to a point of hilarity, but it made Larra grin. It seemed to the two of us that he'd taken to wearing the helmet in an attempt to keep her spirits up. I had to hand it to that kid; he certainly wasn't acting like his father's son. I walked over and patted him on the helmet.

"You're a good kid," I said proudly. "Don't know why I ever called you a rodent when you were born . . ."

There was a muffled "Hey!" from the helmet as I turned and shot a glance at Larra, thinking on what she'd said about the way I hunted.

"I know what you mean, but . . . I saw _Jang'buir _kill too many people in cold blood to want to do it myself. I'd rather hunt for the money than the blood . . . like he did."

"That always seems to be a smart way to work," she said, following me to the cockpit as I slid into place. "Of course, _we_ don't get paid, so it's pretty much always for the blood."

She chuckled slightly as she slid into the co-pilot's chair beside me, adjusting quite well to entering and exiting on her back. Boba took a seat on her lap, and though I knew it'd probably be dangerous—especially if we crashed into a rock wall or something—I didn't try to deter him. After all, Larra was his friend.

Once we were all settled, I eased the _Slave_ up into the rainy, stormy sky, heading us for Corellia. I turned to give them a briefing after we were in hyperspace.

"Okay, so we're on our way to Corellia. We're after a Trade Fed leader—well, not really. He's a little more on the petty side, but the bounty's big enough for us to trail him. He's hiding in Coronet, the _hut'uun_ . . . I may have to kill this one right off. Otherwise he'll make a mess for the GAR." I sighed before shrugging. "_Bo'ika_, want to help me trail him this time?"

"Yeah!" he replied enthusiastically, his voice still muffled from that helmet. "Dad never let me help track one before!"

Tell me something I _don't_ know, _adiik_. I reached over and squeezed his shoulder, offering a word or two of encouragement. I saw a smile creep out from under that helmet, and I wished to the highest heaven that I had mine on so no one would see the tears welling in my eyes.

_You happy now, Kenobi?_ I thought. _That boy needs his father, and _you_ stole him away. I swear, as soon as I find this Federation slime, I _am_ coming for you, Kenobi._

I glanced at Boba again, who was sitting there, so straight and tall, his head completely covered by the gray-white helmet. He _was_ a good boy; that I could not deny. And he was my brother, so I loved him.

_And he loved you, too,_ I thought with a sigh. _He loved you ever so dearly. You were—are—his son; how could he not? And he was so proud of you . . . He wanted you to grow up to be just like him. He _loved_ you, _Bo'ika

Those were four words I wanted to say aloud but couldn't because Larra was there. I bit my tongue to keep from blurting them out, so I just made a mental note to tell him later, when I could speak to him privately. And I took a breath and turned back to the controls, keeping myself occupied during that long, excruciatingly boring trip to Corellia by plotting every move I'd make to kill Kenobi and have my vengeance.


	18. Vengeance is Mine—Sort Of

**Chapter Eighteen – Vengeance is Mine . . . Sort Of**

Ever been to Corellia? Then you probably know it's an enormous planet. It's got a lot of plains and forests, but out there in the middle of all that is the capital, Coronet. It's not such a bad place to hang around; there's plenty to do and see, to be honest. I like the place well enough, except it's pretty darn hard to find a target in such a huge metropolis. I mean, what with all the cantinas, clubs, and various other establishments of shady dealings, it's rough to find somebody. Besides, if I knew Federation slime, he'd be as cowardly as anything and therefore would be doing everything he could to stay hidden. Mm, just my type. I love the hidden kinds. Makes it more fun to have to track them down. Ahh, there I go again, sounding like a bloodthirsty bounty hunter. I'd personally prefer going out after Viceroy Gunray himself, but that opportunity hadn't presented itself, now had it? Nah, the hunt this time was for one of his yellow-livered, slimy little underlings who was scared of his own shadow, most likely.

When we reached Coronet, I eased the _Slave I_ down to the docking bay the air traffic controllers had indicated to us. What I found fun was that they went through all the formalities of a proper docking, but the controller we got was just a punk kid, new on the job, who was scared out of his skin. Ooh, he'd been reading those urban legends about Jango, hadn't he? There, there, sonny. He wasn't _all_ like that . . . Note sarcasm.

I glanced over to Larra as we made another disorienting horizontal landing. She looked . . . well, pretty good for having been kicked out of the ARCs and demoted down to the commandos. Hey, those commandos were good guys; I'm not knocking them. It's just that the ARCs were the elite of the elite. It was practically a miracle that she'd been rescued from the trooper corps and put in ARC training in the first place.

"You okay with this?" I asked her, meaning the bounty hunting, of course.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied. "There any reason why I shouldn't be?"

"Just wondering if maybe you'd have preferred to stay someplace a little more . . . _peaceful_ until you get transferred," I said with a shrug. "But just so you know, I'm glad you're along even if my line of work isn't the . . . nicest in the galaxy."

"Nicest," my _shebs_. What I did for a living was absolutely disgraceful even though I rarely did any killing. All right, I'm grateful to _Jang'buir_ for raising me and taking me as his own daughter, but there comes a time when the kid doesn't want to follow in Daddy's footsteps! Boba was different; he was looking forward to his thirteenth birthday, when he'd go out on his own rite of passage and earn his place in the realm of Mando manhood. Well, whoop-de-do for you, Boba. You just go be a bounty hunter and watch me make a career change to—oh, I dunno—an accountant. All right, I'm kidding with the accountant part. That'd be too kriffin' boring. But I'd heard there was the opposite of bounty hunting out there: hunt sabotage. Hmm . . .

Of course, I'd keep hunting until Kenobi was . . . taken care of. Okay, yeah, that meant I was planning on killing him. I know that sounds funny; after all, _Jang'buir_ had taken on this Jedi, and what did it get him? Mm-hmm, that's exactly my point. But I'd do better. I _had_ to. I'd do whatever I had to do to catch Kenobi off-guard. I'd sneak up on him and take him without his ever knowing I was there. I could toss a poison grenade at him; nah, that wouldn't work. Jedi usually had training to resist poisons. Shoot him with a tranquilizer dart? That might work . . . if I could find the right one. _Jang'buir_ used to have some handy dandy Kaminoan saber darts, but . . . I didn't. It never occurred to me that those would be useful to have. But then again, those darts were less tranquilizing and more _deadly_. Oh, well. I could plot my revenge on Kenobi later; right now I had to concentrate on getting that Federation "official." The Republic wanted him alive; this was one time when I wanted him _dead_. After all, if you left them alive, they'd just come back and bother you.

I crawled out of the cockpit and strode out of the ship, Larra and Boba close on my heel as I dropped my helmet onto my head. He'd shed Chev's helmet sometime back during the trip, and I think it was because it'd gotten too warm in there for him. The word "duh" comes to mind . . . When the _buy'ce_ isn't connected to the armor suit's refrigeration system, it's never going to be comfortable in there. But I hadn't said anything because he was so intent upon keeping Larra cheerful. I glanced around the streets before leading them off toward the infamous Treasure Ship Row. After all, a Trade Fed guy's gonna hide someplace where he's less likely to be recognized, right? And in a place like Treasure Ship Row, there were a million (well, not literally, but cut me some slack, all right?!) places to do that. And surrounded by drunks and spice addicts . . . He'd never even be noticed. So I headed off to the first club I saw.

Thing is . . . on the way over to it, people scattered from my path like frightened rabbits. I knew a Mandalorian bounty hunter was a terrifying sight, but I wasn't _that_ terrifying, was I? I glanced around, eyebrows furrowing beneath my helmet, as Larra jogged up to my side, Boba close behind her.

"Erm . . ." she began, "I think I just noticed a potentially problematic situation."

Ten seconds to see if you got it. Yep—her armor. Despite being custom painted, it was still GAR issue, and anybody who'd been paying attention to the HoloNet's news reports on the war would recognize her armor as if there had been a flashing neon sign reading "My armor is GAR issue" on her chestplate. Yeah, as if I'd been causing a stir, I was pretty sure _she_ was the main reason for the frenzied scattering of humanoids and aliens alike. I silently prayed that they'd think she was just another bounty hunter, but I knew what was running through their heads: "What the frack is a _clone soldier_ doing with a _Fett bounty hunter_?!" I mentioned this, and I must've sounded doubtful because Boba piped up with "Aww, I bet they won't even care!" Heh, the faith of a child. As if navy and black ARC armor wasn't going to turn a few heads. I figured we'd find out just how conspicuous we looked when we stepped into the club.

It was a nice place, to tell the truth: dark red carpets, glittering lights, a vast array of exotic (and rather intoxicating, I'm sure) drinks on the menu . . . I made sure to check if they sold seltzer before taking a look around. Well, it was as good a place as any to begin my little hunt. And what actually took me by surprise was that the place didn't go as still as a tomb when I walked in, as that Nar Shaddaa cantina had seven years ago. Wow, seven already? Seemed like yesterday, to be honest. I sidled up to the bar, Larra and Boba casually following, and leaned against it as I scanned the club. Nothing jumped out at me; my visor wasn't going insane upon locking onto my target. But it _was_ a big club; perhaps I was missing something. I stood there for about five minutes before I decided to blend, so I tugged off my helmet and ordered a seltzer for me and a ginger ale for Boba. Larra refused a drink at that moment, so I just paid in advance and settled down with my seltzer, still looking around despite the lack of my helmet. I started to get a little downtrodden as I studied the club and didn't see my scum bucket target, but then I realized this was only the first out of, ohh, a dozen or more clubs and cantinas along Treasure Ship Row. I'd find that guy even if I had to tear Coronet apart piece by piece. (Though I'm sure you're thinking that he could be on any other planet in the galaxy. Well, I'd begun to think the same thing, but what came next made me think differently.)

When Boba and I finished our drinks, I slipped my helmet back on and was heading for the door when I suddenly stopped and did a double-take at a dark corner table. I was mighty glad to have had my helmet on because my eyeballs very nearly popped right out of their sockets. But the initial shock wore off as rage set in. Back there, in those shadows, keeping an eye on the club's happenings, was Kenobi himself. Ooh, the dirty devil. Either he was trailing me or trailing my target; either one was unacceptable. I wheeled around and stared hard at him across the club, using my visor to focus in on his face. Yes. That was him. Just like in my nightmares.

_Time to die, _jetii

"I do not kriffin' believe what I'm kriffin' seeing!" I growled aloud.

"What is it, _Ro'ika_?" Boba asked, his gaze following mine. When I didn't reply, he touched my arm. "_Ori'vod_?"

_That's the man who killed your father,_ I thought with disgust.

Larra looked at Kenobi, staring into the shadows before shaking her head in confusion at my sudden reaction to his presence.

"Oh, come on," she sighed. "He's not going to do anything. I know him personally; most likely he's out looking for that Trade Federation guy, the same as you are."

I almost turned around and smacked her. Since when had she been fraternizing with a _murderer_?! Didn't she know who'd driven that blade through Chev's heart?! Had she even been paying attention when he fell?!

"You . . . You're kidding, right?" I sputtered, my anger growing hotter by the moment. "What do you mean, he's not going to do anything?! He already has!" I shot an icy glare at her though she couldn't see it. "_That's_ the one who killed my father and Chev!"

All right, I want you to put yourself in my boots and think about this for a moment. You have to picture yourself in my situation and understand what drew me to that conclusion. It was first his unexpected arrival at Kamino, then all those questions he was asking, then the way he so _slyly_ complimented Chev . . . and of course, we mustn't forget his little visit to _Jang'buir_. If there was one thing I'd learned, it was to be observant, always looking, always watching. And I _had_ been watching. That's how I knew Kenobi had sinister plans. Besides, it'd been a _Jedi_ who'd requested the clone army! For all I knew, they probably had some evil plan to use that army to take over the universe, and Chev and all those others rebelled. They made a _choice_ and were killed for it, for all I knew or cared. And Kenobi, with his proper nature and proper accent, seemed just the sort to do it. Besides, who _else_ would've been wielding a lightsaber? Who _else_ would've been in the position to so deftly decapitate _Jang'buir_? I _knew_ he'd been on Geonosis; I'd seen the reports. He'd been there. It had to have been him.

Ready for another assignment? All right. I want you to imagine how you'd feel if you and your family were suddenly separated, but you promised to meet again. I want you to imagine how much pain you'd be in if you went to meet up with your family but found them dead. I want you to imagine the shock, the agony, the bewilderment and guilt, even. Can you do that for me? Can you just _try_ to get a picture of what I was going through inside before you say I was overreacting to the situation?

But I wondered if Larra was right. Maybe he _was_ only there for the Federation guy. Maybe he was doing his service to the Republic by doing a little hunting of his own. Of course, when _he_ turned that guy in, he wouldn't get paid. He was a Jedi; it was expected that he'd rid the galaxy of scum and villainy. But me . . . now I _would_ get paid. And I desperately needed those credits. Both my and Boba's boots were beginning to show wear-and-tear, and the kid needed a new tunic or two. And then there were the _other_ usuals: food, ship fuel, repairs . . . The list grew insanely just in those few moments I thought about it. And it made me angry. There was no way that Kenobi would get away with taking my father and my Chev from me and then take my bounty from me, too! That bounty. Was. _Mine_. He wouldn't steal that from me, too, because even a professional pickpocket has his limits to how much he'll steal, after all. But mainly I sought revenge, so I decided to take care of that first. I stormed over to his corner, shoulders squared decidedly, and I looked him right in the eye.

"Kenobi," I snarled. "You're comin' with me. Now."

He looked up at me, startled, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion. Oh, yeah, it's pretty darn startling to be sitting there, watching the nightlife, then have a fully armored bounty hunter march up to you and so kindly inform you that you're about to die.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but do I know you?"

_Not yet, _jetii_, but you will._

I was just about to murmur those words as Larra dashed up, grabbed my arm, and dragged me away, back toward the door. I growled angrily at her.

"H—e—ey, Kenobi," she said quickly. "One sec, please."

She wheeled around and set her hands on her hips, staring me down. Somehow, I'd angered her. Ooh, I'm sorry. Was my threatening your little Jedi pal making you _mad_? Well, TOUGH! I am one angry _Mando'ad_, so get. The frack. Out. Of. My. WAY!

"Rogue, he did _not_ kill Chev!" she growled. "I saw it; it was some cyborg that can use lightsabers!"

A lightsaber-wielding cyborg. _Riiiight_. Yeah, sure, Larra. You were only insane for a year; I totally believe you. _NOT!_ Then Boba piped up with a statement about it having been a Jedi with a violet lightsaber who killed _Jang'buir_. Okay, now, while I'd normally believe my kid brother, he was probably too shocked by the event to have really seen it clearly. Besides, what Jedi _really_ uses a _purple_ 'saber?

I tore my arm from her grasp, glaring hard. I wasn't gonna believe her, and I certainly wasn't going to fall for her attempts to sway me.

"One Jedi's every bit as good as another!" I snapped. "Besides, I _know_ he was responsible for my losing Chev because he was setting him up! He was setting him up for something that culminated in THIS!" I angrily jabbed a thumb at that charred hole in my chestplate. "I swore I'd kill him, and I will! I swore on _Mand'alor_ I would have his blood for theirs!"

I wheeled around and stormed back to Kenobi, breathing fairly hard. I could literally feel sweat rolling down the back of my neck into the rest of my armor as I shook my fist in his face. No way was he getting away from me!

"Did you hear _that_, Kenobi? I swore I'd kill you, and I will!!"

His blue eyes flashed at me, not with anger, but with shock. He quickly turned to Larra, jabbing a thumb at me.

"Stick, is she _mad_? Who's this 'Chev'?"

_As if you didn't know, you _kyramud

"Just a bit longer, Kenobi?" Larra sighed, dragging me away again. "Thanks."

She grabbed me by both arms and slammed me up against the wall so hard that my breath whooshed right out of me. It was a wonder the entire club didn't see what was going on or hear the way I was screaming at Kenobi. I think a few patrons were beginning to notice, but the rest were either to drunk, stoned, or deafened by the music from the band that they neither noticed nor cared. Larra stared down at me; even through my visor and hers, I could see her eyes were burning with that warrior's fire she talked about.

"He was in NO WAY responsible for Chev's death!" she hissed. "Want proof? First hand witness, right here: It. Was. A. CYBORG. As in PART-DROID. As in NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE REPUBLIC. If he was, you think I wouldn't have known?!"

"No!" I cried, tears streaming down the inside of my helmet. I wanted so badly to get even, to somehow vindicate my losses. "No, I won't believe you! I _won't_! And I _can't_! I _will_ kill him!"

When my knife dropped into my hand, the patrons in the club vanished in a hurry, and I think it was because they all knew what large messes we _Mando'ade_ are prone to make. If Kenobi thought I was insane, then maybe he was right, if only a little. I really did feel insane: insane with anger, insane with grief. Everything from Geonosis came flooding back to me: everything I saw, smelled, _felt_ . . . And my Chev . . . _ner cyar'ika_, lying there, dead, that hole burned right through his formerly beating heart. And my father, lying there as a headless corpse. My eyes burned with tears, and I gasped for breath.

"Kenobi, I'll have you here or in the street!" I cried. "Your call!"

Boba grabbed for me, as if to hold me back, as I tightened my grip on my knife. Larra quickly jumped between me and my prey.

"Kenobi, move it," she said. "She's frackin' serious. I'll try to slow her down."

"If she wants to make her conscience clear, then I welcome her to it," Kenobi replied docilely, rising from his seat.

My _conscience clear?! Oh, Jedi, it's _yours_ I aim to clear. Quit playing dumb with me!_

Larra sighed and backed away as I narrowed my eyes at Kenobi.

"Damn straight I'm serious!" I spat. "You, me, outside. NOW."

I turned on heel and stormed from the club, ignoring all of Boba's attempts to get me to reconsider and muttering in the nastiest Mando'a I knew. Oh, I was finished considering. I was going to have me some Jedi blood. I was sick and tired of waking up in the middle of the night—every _shabla_ night!—with those horrible nightmares! Once I got rid of the root cause, I'd be fine. I'd be able to sleep. And boy, was I about to enjoy this. It didn't sound like me, I know; but it was what I had to do. I'd sworn it on my honor and sealed it with _haat, ijaa, haa'it_. Like I was about to back away from this, the moment for which I'd been waiting for a full year.

I chose a back alley away from Treasure Ship Row so we could get this over with without too many witnesses. I wanted Larra to see for Chev's sake and Boba to see for _Jang'buir_'s. Larra gave me one last long look as I turned to wait for Kenobi, who was close behind her.

"Listen to me, Rogue," she said. "He didn't kill Jango. He didn't kill Chev. You're taking this out on the wrong people."

Something went off into my mind, and suddenly I heard Chev begging me not to fight the wrong people if I ever were to fight for him. And I heard myself promising him I wouldn't . . . promising to keep my eyes on the enemy and not those considered friends. But how was I to know Kenobi was a friend? I didn't. But event that made me wonder, made me doubt . . .

"Back away, Stick," Kenobi said quietly. "If she wants to settle this score with me, I shall let her."

_And you would willingly die? _Jare'la jetii

I arched an eyebrow at him, though all he saw was my head tilt slightly.

"You're taking this mighty calm, '_burc'ya_,' considering you're about to face a _Fett_." Was I forgetting? According to why I was facing him, he _had_ faced a Fett. And won. Now if that wasn't a bad omen . . . "Which way do you want it? I'll run you if you want, or you can run me."

Now whatever made me believe that a Jedi such as he would be so stupid as to run me, I don't know. I was just so blinded by hate and rage that I didn't care who ran whom. He didn't answer. He just watched me with gentle blue eyes that were chilled by emotions I wasn't really expecting. Was it . . . pity? Sympathy? . . . Regret? Was he planning his attack? Was he trying to know mine before I put it in motion? Was he even thinking, or was he just standing there, eyes fixed on the horizontal section of my visor, where _my_ eyes would be? What was going through his mind as he kept gazing at me, one hand slowly unclipping his lightsaber from his belt? And . . . what would stop him from killing _me_?

I glanced over at my brother and Larra and swallowed with slight difficulty. Was I really making the mistake Larra said I was? I studied him for a moment, sizing him up.

As a Jedi, he had the Force on his side. Great, he already had one-upped me there. Most likely, any move I could dare to make would be counteracted by an equally powerful—perhaps even more so—motion from him. I knew I could probably lose a limb to the sheer awesome might of that lightsaber. Even the thought of a prosthesis didn't offer any comfort. But would I back down? Never.

I began circling him slowly, trying to come up on a blind spot and not have to run him from the front. If I did, he'd be all over me and probably even impale me. Even with his Force powers, he _had_ to have a blind spot. There _had_ to be some part of him over which he was not watching. There had to be _something_. I shook my head, trying to clear away the mental fog that had been brought on by all that anger and hate building up and multiplying. I wondered if I was really making a mistake . . .

But I ignored my logic. Knife drawn, I lunged for Kenobi's back, aiming my blade for the base of his skull. I was going to take him out just like that. _Nobody_, not even a Jedi, survives a knife through the brain. But I'd miscalculated the strength of his powers. In a whirl, his lightsaber was active, its blue blade growling at me as if to scold me, and he stretched out his hand. Just as I came at him, my knife was wrenched from my hand, and his blade was out across my abdomen: through my armor and across the flesh beneath. I couldn't help but gasp in pain as both hands went to hold the wound and I went to the ground at his feet.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

Nearby, I heard Boba yelp quietly and try to run to me, but Larra held him back, glaring hard at me.

"_Haar'chak_, Rogue, can't you stop and think?!"

I _did_ think. I just didn't stop. I squeezed my eyes shut against the searing pain, feeling the warm blood flow through my fingers and out onto the street. I didn't know how deep a cut it was; all I knew was that it hurt like hell and I was losing blood by the gallon, or so it felt. To be honest, I'd never even been truly wounded before. Oh, sure, I'd gotten my fair share of busted lips and bloodied noses, and I'd been kicked more than once in the gut, but I'd never been _hurt_. This was the first time I'd ever found myself lying on the ground, bleeding severely and blinking fast to keep myself awake. I groaned and reached up, tearing my helmet away so Kenobi could see me. I glared up at him, clenching my teeth.

"Damn you, Jedi," I whispered.

Was that . . . mutual pain in his eyes? I didn't know. I thought anybody would be happy to have downed his enemy like that. I blinked up at him, seeing duplicates. The last time I'd felt like that was . . . well, when Larra head-butted me all those years ago. I curled up in a ball with a muffled moan, biting my lip until it, too, bled. I felt a hand on my arm and cracked an eye open. Boba had squirmed out of Larra's grasp and come to my side, and he was squeezing my arm and watching me with worried eyes . . . all four of them. No, wait. It was six now. I inhaled heavily, and he gripped my hand.

"C'mon, _Ro'ika_," he pleaded. "Get up! You have to get up."

_Sorry, kid. Not happenin'. This Mando's down and very out._

Frankly, I felt like passing out. Seeing triplicates of everything only made me certain I was going to. Blood loss, pain . . . you name it, I was going to pass out from it. Boba kept begging me to get up, trying to pull me to my feet, but I just lay there, curling myself into a tighter and tighter ball. Larra was nearby, barking at Kenobi how he should have used his Force to freeze me in place, not injure me. His only response was that I had been coming with a knife . . .

_So I struck some fear into you after all, eh, _jetii_? That's nice to know . . . Say so at my funeral._

I didn't know if I was going to die. All I knew was that my eyelids were getting painfully heavy. My hands were soaked with my blood—gross thought, I know, but it was true—and the ground beneath me was red, as well. Thing was, I didn't regret anything. Okay, so I regretted getting myself sliced . . . but I would still have Kenobi if I had to trick him into walking through a minefield. Larra bent down to me as if to inspect the wound. I just drew my knees up into my chest, shaking my head fiercely. I didn't want bacta on it; not yet, at least. I wanted to be feeling that pain so I could have _some_ idea of how Chev felt when he died. I squeezed my eyes shut, grinding my back teeth.

"Kenobi, I swear I'll have your skin. If not for Chevron, then for _Jang'buir_. And if not for him, then for the entire clone army who are giving their lives for your frackin' Republic."

"They're not dying _just_ for the Republic!" Larra barked at me. "They're dying because they don't know any frackin' better! Out of millions, Boba and I are the only two without so much tampering! We're the only ones with the best shot at actually _having_ lives! Jedi like Kenobi—the ones that actually give a kriff—are few and far between. So just shut up and _listen_, all right?!"

Listen. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to keep curling up in my little ball and eventually just die. I glared up at Larra, jabbing a bloody thumb at my chestplate.

"You must've forgotten why I'm even _wearing_ this chestplate! I'm wearing it because I lost him to your war, Kenobi! It's Mando tradition to wear the armor of dead loved ones! That's why I've got this flame thrower, too—because my father is dead, as well! Killed by one of your Order's blades!"

Well, that was something. All that time, I'd been using Kenobi's name in there, but when the time came, I said "one of _your Order's_ blades" instead of "_your_ blade" as I had practiced in my mind a hundred times. I think Larra noticed it too, because she stared at me for a moment as I looked away with a stubborn scowl. The world outside began to grow fuzzier to me, and my eyelids sagged, but I forced them open again.

"_It was a cyborg_," Larra persisted, each word coming out as emphatically as the one before it. "_Kenobi wasn't even there!_"

"I don't believe you, Larra!" I snapped. "You went insane for a year; you think I'm gonna believe what you claim are 'memories'?!"

Even with her helmet on, she looked hurt, to tell the truth, as if she was the one lying there with a gash the size of Coruscant across her stomach. She straightened grimly and shook my shoulder.

"They _are_ memories, Rogue, because _I was there_! I saw it happen! That was _why_ I went insane for a year!"

She kept yelling, trying to get me to see reason, but I never heard her. My eyelids sagged again, and this time, my head slipped sideways. I had this moment of "Goodbye, cruel galaxy" as Boba slipped his knees up under my head to support me, his hand still tightly gripping mine. Larra's voice was getting farther and farther away, as if she was speaking to me across a one hundred-mile-wide chasm. I exhaled heavily, more than willing for the unconsciousness to take me . . . either that or death. I could have sworn I saw Chev's face in the darkness . . . like he was waiting for me, telling me to come on with him. But Larra was still out there, shaking me violently and smacking me across the face multiple times with her open palm.

"Stay awake, dammit! _Stay awake!!_" She was still yelling at me. I was still resistant.

But Boba was still with me, pleading with me to wake up, to get up, to do anything if it would only prove I was all right. Well, the truth was, I wasn't. I was injured and bleeding. And I missed Chev and _Jang'buir_ more than I ever had before. Eventually Larra slapped me so many times that my cheek was chafed and very red, and I groggily cracked my eyes open, watching that darkness quickly recede.

"Welcome back," she said, her voice unforgiving and her posture still straight as a board.

Boba leaned down and gave me a huge hug; I don't know why, really. I was still hurt; I guess seeing me black out for a minute or two shook him up a bit. I looked up to see Kenobi still standing there, looking almost apologetic and genuinely concerned. I wanted to smack that sympathetic look right off his face. I squeezed my eyes shut and weakly moaned Chev's name, and that got the argument started right back up again.

"I still don't believe you," I informed Larra. "I just _can't_ . . . Cyborgs don't wield lightsabers . . . Only Jedi do . . . And Kenobi was planning something . . . Ever since Kamino, when he talked to Chev, complimented him, told him what an asset he would be to the army . . ."

"So?" Larra returned. "Since when has complimenting a top-of-his-class commander become a criminal offense?"

"Since the one doing the complimenting was planning on luring that commander to his death—his _murder_!"

I heard Kenobi inhale sharply. Touched a nerve, did I? Good. Every dig I made at him made me feel better, if only a bit. And I'm not kidding. But after I made that comment about the compliments, Larra smacked me again—right across the mouth. I blinked up at her, shocked, as blood spurted from the gash I'd chewed in it before. As if the half-dozen times or more she'd slapped me across the face hadn't hurt . . . Boba yelled for her to stop as she pulled back to hit me again, and he reached up to stop her arm before her fist hit me again. I cowered, knowing she was using that beating to try to knock some sense into me but frightened of it nonetheless. Larra glared at Boba but lowered her fist. She sighed, a growl faintly present in that exhale, and she grabbed me by the shoulder.

"All right, fine, Chev was lost in the war. What makes you think he died because he was tricked into it?! It wasn't like Kenobi came up giving orders and then ran him through! Oh, frack, how can I show you this?!"

She clenched her fists and exhaled heavily. I don't know what she was doing, but . . . images . . . started flashing through my mind. It only took a moment for me to realize what it was: Geonosis. The sand, the red rocks, the smoke from blaster rifles and explosives. All of it was there. And then there was that moment I dreamed of every night whether I wanted to or not—usually when I _didn't_ want to. It was Chevron, that emerald blade piercing his heart and emerging from his backplate, his knees going weak as he slipped sideways off the blade, lifeless and unmoving. I felt my breath leave me because the hand holding the lightsaber's hilt wasn't flesh and bone. It was _metal_. Pure duranium. Six fingers and two opposable thumbs clenched tightly around that 'saber's gleaming silver hilt. And that _face_ . . . That's a nightmare that will stick with me the rest of my life. It was a skull-like mask from which eerie yellow eyes—so very nonhuman—peered out. Even from just seeing it in my mind, I felt my blood run cold. I just shuddered and gasped, clutching my head with my bloodstained hands, trying to get the images to just go away.

"Larra . . . oh, _haar'chak_, what are you doing to my head?!" I moaned. "My Force . . . Chev . . . Nonononono . . . _no_ . . . !"

I began to tremble and cry as more of those damnable images flooded my mind. There I saw that hideous cyborg's appearance, his seven-foot-tall (perhaps taller) steel frame rising from the smoke and shadows, shrouded by a long, dark cloak . . . His hacking cough, his growling, raspy voice . . . And there was Larra, taking him on, sword against lightsaber. There were those horrible talons scuffling through the dirt, creating those long, bloody claw marks in the sand. There was Larra lying dazed after careening into a wall, watching helplessly as that demon carved his way through a dozen troopers before turning savagely on Chevron . . . That green blade lifted high into the air, sailing toward him . . .

I screamed as the flood suddenly ceased and I was left gasping. I curled up into a ball, sobbing like a vulnerable little child. Larra gazed down at me, and when she spoke, her voice was a trembling whisper. I heard tears in her voice.

"_Now_ do you understand?"

I nodded rapidly, whimpering "Uh huh" about ten times before I began crying again. I buried my face in my folded arms, squeezing my eyes shut against the residual pain from the gash on my stomach and against a fresh onslaught of tears.

"Oh, my Force . . . my Chev . . . He didn't have to go like that . . ."

No, he didn't. But he went to Geonosis because duty called him. That I understood. It still hurt to have lost him . . . How could it not? But what hurt more was the fact that I'd made a terrible error, one that could have been so costly. I always believed in honor, always looked for the most honorable way of dealing with a situation. But where was the honor in killing for simple revenge, for simple bloodlust? And I felt so . . . well, _foolish_ is the only word I can think of that does even a halfway decent job of describing it. I was mortified, humiliated. _Shamed._ I cried for that, for myself, for Boba, Larra, Sevvie, and Chev . . . I cried for them all, burying my face in my arms so no one could see.

There was a gentle hand on my stomach, and a feeling akin to cool, running water flowed across my skin as the bleeding stopped and the flesh began knitting back together. I lifted my head and blinked, inhaling with surprise when I found Kenobi kneeling there at my side. Larra sat back, shaking her head as if in confusion, and Boba embraced me.

"He didn't kill Dad," he whispered. "He was just . . . in the wrong place at the wrong time."

I didn't even really hear my brother, for I was looking up into Kenobi's eyes, trying to fathom why he had helped me even after I had tried to take his life.

"Why did you do that?" I questioned. "You could've just let me die . . . I might've preferred it that way, bringing shame to my father's name like I have."

I looked away, biting my still-sore lip. And I could've sworn that I felt another familiar touch on my shoulder, but when I looked around, no one had their hand on me, and there was no one else around. But it was . . . warm. Strong. Comforting. _Familiar_ is all I can say. It was . . . like _Jang'buir_'s, and I wondered if . . . Kenobi smiled faintly at me.

"A Jedi doesn't let people die for being mistaken," he said. As if that would make me feel better. I was deathly ashamed. "As to the death of Jango Fett, you will have to ask Master Windu about that. That one time we met on Kamino has been the only contact I have had with him."

Yeah, I knew that was the truth . . . now, after the fact, after I'd tried to kill Kenobi and in turn had received nothing more than a slash across my stomach and a brain load of bad memories for my trouble. But I was still so filled with the guilt of what I'd done—what I'd tried to do. It stung like a hornet, and quite frankly, I was ashamed . . . badly ashamed. I quickly shook my head, trying to blink back tears but failing. Larra must've thought I was completely off my rocker, crying like that. Or maybe Boba did; I don't know. All I know was that there were tears running down my cheeks and Kenobi was reaching out to lay a tender hand on my shoulder. I turned away, sighing heavily.

"No, that's not my point at all . . . You should've just let me die because I tried to take your life for no reason . . . I _do_ remember you coming to Kamino . . . I do . . . That's why I thought . . . And the way you praised Chev . . . I thought . . . I thought you had some sort of sinister plan . . ."

I sat there on my knees, looking down at the bloodstained ground beneath me. I inhaled shakily and clasped my hands.

"_Ni ceta_."

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Larra and Boba as Kenobi looked to them for translation. Boba gave it to him in a nutshell, but let me elaborate. _Ni ceta_ is the absolute lowest, most groveling apology a Mandalorian can make. It is used only in dire circumstances when nothing else will salve the shame. It translates to "I kneel," which, I guess, means that by saying it, you put yourself at the mercy of the one you so dastardly offended. Trust me—it's not a phrase you throw around lightly. It's used for . . . well, for groveling. For begging for mercy, for putting yourself in submission, at their heel, in the lowest place of shame . . . Want me to keep going, or did you get that?

In a low tone, Boba quickly translated and gave Kenobi the simplest explanation. Kenobi nodded and lifted my chin.

"You don't have to apologize," he said. "Besides, it's the Sith way, not the Jedi, to manipulate. I would never do such a thing."

Larra straightened slightly and rolled her shoulders; I was getting something of a "bad memory vibe" from her. I nodded at Kenobi and gave a grateful smile. He was taking this so well . . . Okay, I'd come at him with a very big knife and tried to stab it into his brain, and here he was telling me I didn't need to apologize? Something was . . . a little wrong with that picture, but I was glad of it, frankly. Somehow I felt like I'd really been forgiven of trying to harm him. (Now, whatever came over me to try to take on a Jedi, I'll never know. I _still_ haven't figured it out.)

"Then . . . then I thank you, Kenobi," I said with a sigh, "for not killing _me_ . . . for not _hating_ me . . . for not being the one to kill them . . . I'm just . . . so sorry for this all."

I stood, retrieving my helmet and preparing to slide it into place to hide the flush of shame in my face before stooping for my knife. But I was so not used to wearing it all the time—much unlike Larra, of course—that I didn't. I just tucked it under my arm, making a mental note to patch my armor later, as Kenobi chuckled.

"Actually, it was . . . a bit refreshing, to be honest, having someone actually hating me," he admitted, much to my surprise. "Quite a bit of a shock, really."

Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that Jedi aren't hated and despised on a regular basis? Like there aren't a hundred assassins out after them all day long? From the corner of my eye, I saw Boba smirk, and Larra made a strange choking sound that led me to believe she was doing her best to stifle a snicker. Even I grinned as I glanced down at the nice big gash in my armor and reminded myself that I really did deserve that wound. But Kenobi had been showing an exceptional amount of mercy on me, a lil' ol' bounty hunter, meaning he was being nicer to me than I had deserved. I glanced over to Larra and shrugged slightly.

"Uh . . . thanks," I said, "for showing me what had happened. It . . . it hurts, but . . ."

I broke off, swallowing hard to get past the lump. When I said it hurt, I meant it. Seeing your love die right in your minds' eye like that is . . . disconcerting, to say the least. I wondered if the nightmares would go away but I had this terrible feeling that they wouldn't. Larra gave me a slow, single nod, and I turned back to Kenobi. If I hadn't been so devoted to Chev, I might venture out and say that his eyes were simply breathtaking. But I was, so I won't. So there.

"Kenobi, I _am_ sorry," I repeated. "If I'd known it was a cyborg and not you . . . Well, I would've gone after the machine. I went a bit overboard—okay, a lot."

He waved me off, dismissing the matter as if it'd never happened, as I reached over and ruffled Boba's hair, apologizing that he had to watch his sister go practically insane. He shrugged it off and grinned; Force, he's a good kid. Kenobi and Larra had a short conversation—mostly skirting the issue of her absence from the galaxy—before I reminded them of the bounty we'd come after in the first place. Ever so graciously, Kenobi agreed to let us get to it, and he gave us all a brief bow before turning and vanishing into the dark Corellian night without so much as a trace. It was as if none of it had ever happened, for I blinked and sighed, rolling my shoulders forward.

"I am one heck of an _ordinii_," I mumbled. "Why didn't you all try to stop me?!"

From the looks that crossed Boba and Larra's faces, I knew I'd said something weird. Thing was . . . I felt weird. My memory was practically blank to what had happened before Kenobi nearly sashimied me. Larra reached over for my arm.

"Rogue, I had to pull you away from Kenobi _TWICE_ before you threatened him out here."

"What?" I replied, arching an eyebrow. "Then where was I?! . . . Figuratively, I mean!"

"Well, you _were_ pretty mad when you saw him . . ." Boba said, offering a potential explanation. "Got pretty frightenin', really."

I was with him. But I didn't have time to worry about spotty memories. Larra muttered something about the oddity of the situation as I shrugged and headed back to the _Slave I_ to patch up my armor. Thing was, as soon as I was in the cargo hold fixing up my armor, all the memories of what I've described came back, and I felt even more ashamed for what I'd nearly done. But I pushed it aside, reminding myself that all was forgiven and I had better things to do than go hunting for revenge again. I was just glad that whole ordeal was over. My stomach felt as good as new, and I tested the skin by prodding it multiple times before slipping my patched-up armor plates back into place. Then I gathered Larra and Boba and headed back out into the dark back alleys and shady areas of Coronet to do a little hunting. I needed the money on that Federation boss's head. Nope, I wasn't hunting for the pleasure. I needed the money badly. As we walked through the darkened streets, I flexed my wrist. Knife was still there. Lovely. Federation mincemeat, anyone?


	19. Corellian Ale and Heart to Hearts

**Chapter Nineteen – Corellian Ale and Heart-to-Hearts**

I don't know how long we spent looking for that Federation bounty. All I knew was that it must've been a day or two, maybe even more. All I knew was that we followed enough leads to fill a legal thriller. And for what? For nothing. Start getting worried whenever you like, because I'm sure you're already pretty darn correct about what happened. We didn't get him. All our hard work left us with nothing. By the time we were close enough to lay our hands on him, we learned he was gone, already captured. Do I even have to tell you how disappointed I felt? For probably the first time in my life, I hadn't been the first. Somebody else had beaten me to it. And do you even know how many credits this one was worth?! It was enough to make me want to pound my head into a durasteel wall. Why, you ask? Well, it's simple. If I hadn't taken the precious time to pick a fight with Kenobi, I would've had more time to hunt, and I probably would've gotten the money, too. We'd all be sittin' pretty. Boba would be adjusting to a new pair of boots, I'd be refueling the _Slave I_, and Larra and I just might be trying out new upgrades for our various weaponry. And, of course, we could all stand to have a really good meal once in a while. I think that was what got me right between the eyes. I'd been providing for Boba and myself for a full year—almost two—and this was the first time I'd come dangerously close to an out-and-out failure. So that was why as we went back to the _Slave_, I was moping a good bit. Thankfully, I still had my helmet on, so nobody had to see the expression on my face. Boba tried to cheer me with a grin and a laughing "Hey, you can't win 'em all, I guess!" Poor, clueless kid; he wasn't the one who had to deal with the ol' financial situations. He never had to worry where his dinner was coming from; that was my job, and I preferred it that way. (To you adults out there who have a house note, a speeder note, more than one kid, _and_ the bills that go with . . . I don't know how you do it. But I guess a steady job helps, right?)

As we returned to the _Slave_, I was still sorely irritated by my failure to catch that bounty, so I sent Boba and Larra off to the cargo hold to sort through the rifle stash and see what could be sold. They quickly agreed, sensing my sour mood, as I stormed up to the cockpit, intending fully to leave Corellia and get ourselves to another planet and hunt down another job. Thing was, as soon as I got up there, my eyes fell on a small money pouch with a slip of paper pinned to it. Instantly, my eyebrows went up, and I started glancing apprehensively around. I hadn't left it there, and if I had, I wouldn't have pinned a note to it. And I was certain that neither Larra nor Boba owned that kind of money pouch. Besides, I was left unnerved that someone had been able to get into the _Slave_ while I wasn't there. That bothered me the most as I leaned into the cockpit and pulled the sack out. Sighing, I pulled the note free and glanced down at it, and my eyeballs almost popped out of my head.

_Rogue—_

_I'm sorry to admit that I was the one who got to your bounty before you did, if you were in fact after that missing Trade Federation official. I was sent to find him and bring him back, so I'm afraid that I pulled your earnings right out from under you. When I realized this, I convinced the authorities to pay the reward to me, so I brought it to you. I have no need for the money, but I'm sure you do. Good luck in your travels, and may the Force be with you._

_- Obi-Wan Kenobi_

Well, I just about fell over. Literally. Remember that guilt I'd been feeling about trying to kill him? It'd gone away a few hours after the incident, but just like that, it all came flooding back. Curses, why did this guy have to be so darn benevolent?! I quickly opened the money pouch and found a few dozen, high-value credit vouchers. I didn't even bother to count it; I just knew we were set for the next . . . few weeks. Trust me, keeping a ship like the _Slave I_ operational is _not_ cheap. But I was so insanely happy that I didn't care if the money wouldn't last very long. I let out this war whoop and a laugh, and Larra and Boba came running from the cargo hold, asking what was wrong. I handed them the note as I pocketed the money and started for the boarding ramp. I heard the murmur of surprise behind me, and I chuckled.

"Oh, c'mon, you guys; let's go celebrate!" I said.

And by "celebrate" I meant "have a nice dinner for once." Funny how folks always celebrate with _food_, isn't it? Well, I led them back down to Treasure Ship Row, where we picked another club to visit (since I was certain that first one probably didn't want to have me back in there). Once there, we got ourselves a nice little corner table, and we had dinner. It wasn't a huge feast, but it certainly wasn't ration bars and various other similar things. Looking back on it, it was pretty humble, but we were happy with it. After dinner, I decided to splurge a little, so we went up to the bar, where I deviated from my usual seltzer and ordered a mug of Corellian ale. Boba had his ginger ale, and when I turned to ask Larra what she was having, her eyes locked onto the wide selection behind the waiting bartender and stayed there. I couldn't help but grin as she blinked a couple times, looking very confused.

"No idea," she admitted a bit sheepishly.

Boba chuckled before taking a sip from his ginger ale, and I turned and ordered for Larra. When the drink came, I gently pushed it to her. Big mistake, let me tell you.

"Here you go," I said, "try this. You can't come to Coronet without sampling Corellian ale."

I smiled as I took a slow sip from my mug; it burned going down, but that was why I wasn't drinking a whole lot—just a tiny, occasional sip. Larra stared at the mug as if waiting for it to jump up and bite her on the nose, but then she carefully lifted it up and took a sniff at it. Satisfied that it seemed all right, she cautiously took a sip, and the next thing I knew, she was coughing and sputtering. Whoops. I'd forgotten to mention the whole feeling-of-burning issue.

"How can you like this stuff?!" she choked out. "Force . . ."

"I don't," I replied. "I just take a sip or two on special occasions, and I think being gifted by a generous Jedi happens to be one such occasion. Remember, I'm a seltzer girl. But I think I see your problem. You're drinking it straight."

"What?"

"Straight. As in plain. Normally, I'd be a good Mando and offer you a touch of behot to add to it, but as you can tell, I don't carry it with me. I'm not some drunkard, you know."

I tilted my head and smirked at her, and she shot me a glare. She sighed and cringed before attempting another sip. My eyes went wide as saucers when that sip turned into one long gulp, and she downed the entire mug in one quick motion. Boba and I exchanged a glance, and he just _stared_ in absolute shock as he clutched his ginger ale. Frankly, I'd begun wishing I'd bought one of _those_ for Larra instead of the real deal. I blinked, shaking my head.

"Uh, not to rain on your parade, but you drank that pretty fast."

I shot a glance down at my own mug, which was still almost completely full except for the two or three itty bitty sips I'd taken. Larra shrugged and flexed her fingers.

"I feel . . . _tingly_ all of a sudden," she said. "Not a _bad_ tingling, but . . .weird . . ."

She kept flexing her fingers as if trying to determine the tingling's source. I could've told her that. She'd probably just scorched out her intestines with that flood of alcohol.

"I don't blame you," I replied. "I've never seen anybody down an ale like that. I say take a minute and think on this. That tingling's probably coming right from your gut."

"Well . . . there's only one way to know for sure," came her answer as she pushed her empty mug back toward the bartender. "I'll take a refill."

I stared some more and shook my head as the bartender quickly obliged her—a bit too quickly and cheerfully, I might add. It suddenly occurred to me that introducing her to Corellian ale was probably number two on my "Stupidest Things I've Done in My Life" list . . . right behind the whole Kenobi incident. I hated to think what was coming, so I hastily pushed my own mug away, earning a raised eyebrow of confusion from the bartender.

"I'm done," I stated. "Gimme a seltzer."

He brought me my usual drink, but as he turned to take my mug, Larra stuck out her hand.

"I can finish it," she said, starting to sound a bit slurred. "Leave it."

In a flash, she downed both my mug and her refill, and I grimaced. Ever seen a hangover? Don't hope to. It's messy and not very pleasant, to be tactful about it. She started to look a bit shaky, and Boba reached over for her arm.

"Uh, Larra?" he said. "You don't look good . . ."

Talk about your understatement of the millennium. I nodded in agreement, prying her fingers away from the handle of her empty mug.

"You're gonna be sick as a freakin' _dog_, Lar. You better give me that."

I tugged the mug from her grip, but her fingers tightened around it as she hiccupped and clumsily waved my hand off. I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed.

"No, I fin', I tell ya! Perfectly fin'!"

"Fine"? Slurring your words and starting to stagger was considered "fine"? Sweet Force, had she even ever been drunk before?! What had I been thinking, bringing her to a bar?! Was I nuts?!

"Ohh, no," I said, shaking my head. "You are _not_ fine, missy; you are _drunk_. And when that hangover hits, you better hope you're kneeling in the 'fresher because you are sure as heck going to need it."

I quickly flipped the bartender a few credits to pay for our dinner and drinks, mentally chiding myself the whole time about how stupid it was to introduce Larra to ale. That's it. She's going on _ginger_ ale next time we're anywhere near a bar. I grabbed her elbow to help her off the barstool.

"Okay, c'mon," I said. "We're going back to our hotel room. _Bo'ika_, you head over there and get the key, okay?"

"On it!" he replied, tossing me a quick, two-fingered salute before dashing out of the club and down the street.

Larra stumbled into my arms off the stool, and I gently pushed her back, straightening her. But she was more than a little tipsy. Ooh, boy, this was going to be one fun evening. _Not!_

"Don't wanna go . . ." she mumbled with a hiccup that turned into a cough. "I fine . . . Gimme 'nuther . . ."

I shook my head and sighed.

"Nope, not happening," I replied. "We're taking you back to the room so you can lie down and rest until you start throwing up. And then we're going to let you throw up for as many hours as we have to hold your head over that 'fresher." I sighed and mumbled under my breath. "Why'd I ever let you have that drink . . . I should've gotten you a seltzer. Or a ginger ale. Or _water_."

Ah, yes. The good ol' H2O. That would've been a nice change from the drunken, delusional stupidity Larra was sinking rapidly into. What shamed me was that I'd gotten her into it. Talk about your most embarrassing moment. Okay, okay, so it was my _second_-most embarrassing moment. But I was certain that if Larra were sober, she'd realize it was pretty darn humiliating for both of us! Anyway, as I helped her out of that bar, she started rapidly shaking her head and mumbling.

"Noooo . . . don't wanna . . . lemme alone, no . . . no, I didn't do anything . . . stop it, stop it, let me go!"

I reached over and pressed a hand to her forehead, drawing it quickly back when I felt how hot it was. A layer of sweat was forming on her forehead, and I figured we didn't have much longer before she was losing her cookies. As we stepped out onto the street (okay, so _I_ stepped; she stumbled), I let her lean completely on me. Let me tell you, that wasn't easy. She is one heavy ARC! Thankfully, I didn't have to hold her for too long, because Boba raced back with the key to our hotel room, so that was where we went. Along the way, Larra kept mumbling in slurred, incoherent sentences sprinkled with "Let me go!" and "Stop it!" I wondered just what was going through her head.

"Hey, _udesii_," I soothed. "You're just a little—okay, a _lot_—drunk . . . It'll wear off eventually . . . Just hold it together for a bit, okay?"

When we reached the hotel, I flashed an apologetic smile at the clerk behind the counter, who shook his head in disbelief and something like humiliation. Hey, pal, chill. Would you prefer her throwing up in your nice, clean lobby or in our room's 'fresher? That's what I thought.

We only had to climb one tiny flight of stairs before we reached the room, and once there, I willingly let Larra collapse onto her bunk. Needless to say, she practically took me down with her because she was so out of it, she was like a giant boulder. I sighed heavily as I scrambled up, sliding her legs onto the bed so that her feet dangled off the end. Sighing, I set my hands on my hips and glanced at Boba.

"This could be hard," I said. "First time hangover . . . Messy."

He looked up at me, worry evident in his normally emotionless brown eyes.

"She'll be okay, though . . . right? Please . . . she'd better be OK . . ."

_You poor kid, so worried about your friends. Ahh, Chev would've liked you._

I reached over and stuck out my hand, and he slipped his into it. Gently, I squeezed his hand and glanced to Larra.

"Oh, sure," I nodded. "She'll be fine. Just needs some rest and a little while to let her system clear out the alcohol overload."

Overload, my foot. She'd given her system a category five _hurricane_ of alcohol. I'd say that she totally deserved the hangover that was coming to her, but that'd be cruel. But then again, her body was probably screaming about the cruelness of her dumping all that Corellian ale into it. I glanced over at her with a sigh. Though her eyes were closed, I could see that they were moving crazily underneath, like she was looking at a multitude of things all at once. I couldn't help but wonder if she was reliving her past—if that alcohol had somehow affected her mind like that. Maybe ten minutes dragged by while she mumbled softly and her eyes darted around. Needless to say, I was grateful when it wound down and she cracked an eye open.

"My head feels like it's been sawed in two . . ." she complained with a moan.

"Just take it easy," I said, reaching over and patting her arm. "That's about what you did to your system . . . You poured about three mugs of Corellian ale into it. Don't expect to be feeling too well for a while—a few hours, at least."

"Aw . . . that was stupid . . ."

Stupid, indeed. She was about to say more, but she inhaled sharply as her hand flew to her mouth and she bolted for the 'fresher. Boba and I grimaced in empathy as some very . . . nasty . . . sounds came echoing out. Poor girl. Well, she'd brought this on herself. But in spite of that, I sighed, went to the door, and let myself in. And there she was, hanging her head over the 'fresher and looking quite pale. I knelt down at her side, gently rubbing her back and shoulders as if that would somehow make her feel better.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not going to down three ales ever, _ever_ again?" I said, allowing myself something of a grin as I patted her back. "Can I get you anything? How about a medpac? Want a medpac? Glass of water? . . . Stomach pump?"

Even I had to admit offering a stomach pump was _cold_. Very cold. Not too high on the "nice" side of the good and evil spectrum, either. She turned slowly and shot me a glare, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet but still incredibly angry. Great, look at me go: I just ticked off this girl for the . . . I dunno . . . umpteenth time in my existence.

"Jus' let me get this out . . ." she grumbled. "Ech . . ."

She shoved me off only about two seconds before she started throwing up again. I skittered backwards out of the 'fresher and back into the room.

"Okay, okay. Sheesh, you try to be nice and you get your head clawed off."

I cast a glance at the 'fresher door as I crossed the room and sank into a large chair in the corner. Crossing my legs at the knees, I leaned back and sighed before beginning to hum _"Vode An_._"_ Normally, that song would bring me comfort and pride in my blood (or the Mandalorian half of it, anyway), but this time . . . this time it brought memories. Memories of _Jang'buir_ and Chev flooded my mind, as well as the years we'd all lived on Kamino. I'd grown up there—both in the sense of physical maturity and that whole coming-of-age rite I went through with my first bounty. I barely even remembered my birth parents anymore, except I remembered they had abandoned me. But that didn't matter any longer. What mattered was that the past still hurt even though I hadn't expected it to. I kept humming, but it got harder to do so because my throat was beginning to tighten. I kept seeing Chev's smile and the glint in _Jang'buir_'s eyes whenever he would show me a new weapon or a new and better way to hunt. Force, if anybody thought I was old enough to fend for myself, they would be very wrong. I still needed my father, as did Boba. I could only be a big sister to him. I could not be mother _and_ father. I sighed, my song falling silent. I knew a sad expression crossed my face. I felt my mouth turn downward somewhat. Boba noticed it, and after sparing a worrisome glance at the 'fresher, he shot me a quizzical look.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, uh . . . yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, is all."

I didn't bother to tell him I was still in something of a state of mourning. I could have, though. He understood that. He didn't know that I often heard him crying for his father in his sleep at night, but I did. I just never told him because that would embarrass him far beyond normal limits. He wanted to be tough, so I decided that keeping such things hush-hush wouldn't be such a bad idea.

We sat there for a long time in silence. It might've been thirty minutes, or it could have been an hour; I don't know. All I know was that I was beginning to worry about Larra. I was beginning to wonder if she'd passed out in the 'fresher and needed me to come drag her out. I half-stood from my chair to go check on her, but she suddenly emerged, looking terribly pale and staggering somewhat.

"Note to self," she said, her voice trembling. "No more alcohol in copious amounts. Now I know why Kal never let me take a sip of whatever was in his flask."

I smiled faintly and nodded.

"Exactly," I said, thinking back. Kal always kept a flask of something or other in the pocket of his bantha leather jacket. I'd asked him about it one day, and he said when I turned eighteen, I could have a swig. Of course, that was two years ago, and I'd forgotten by that time. I looked at Larra with an apologetic sigh. "Sorry I had to get you started on that stuff . . . But you just lie down and rest a bit. We'll get quiet and maybe even get a few winks."

She crashed onto the bed we had deemed "hers." There were only two twin-sized beds in the room; one was Larra's and the other was Boba's. I slept in that overstuffed chair in the corner, usually curled up in a ball under a blanket. It wasn't that uncomfortable, really. It was better than trying to sleep in the _Slave I_. I've never tried that, and I do not intend to. Anyway, Larra gave me a feeble thumbs-up sign before exhaling heavily and pressing a hand to her forehead as she closed her eyes. I didn't like to think about it, but I could imagine the headache she had. Think of the worst headache, migraine, whatever, that _you've_ ever had and multiply it by ten. Or twenty. Begun pitying her yet? I rose from my seat and stepped into the 'fresher to grab a washcloth. I soaked it in cold water before wringing it out and laying it across her head. Boba tilted his head at me and I motioned for him to crawl into bed. He quickly did so, tugging his boots off and loosening his tunic's belt as he dived under the covers and pulled them up to his chin. I crept back to my chair, curling up in it—still in full armor, I might add. That isn't too comfortable, but when you don't have anything else . . . I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed my eyes shut, dragging my blanket up to my neck. I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep and sleep _well_. I hadn't had a good night's sleep in . . . oh, a year. I just wanted to be able to sleep and not have those awful nightmares. But, my brain insisted that I have those nightmares and therefore keep me from enjoying a restful sleep. I swear, my mind is against allowing me peace. But I guess it'll be like that until that cyborg is dead. To tell the truth, I hate going to sleep. I always dream of either _Jang'buir_ or Chev's death. Sometimes I'm there to see it. Other times I get there too late to save them. And . . . sometimes . . . I _am_ them. _I_ feel the heat of the lightsaber blades as they come at either my neck or my heart, depending on the dream. And after those particular dreams . . . I awake in a cold sweat and screaming. Boba's had to calm me down on more than one occasion, which is . . . a bit embarrassing. So because I hated those dreams so badly, I began to survive on minimal sleep. It was hard sometimes, but I did it. Of course, that night, I was too exhausted to even consider nightmares. So I slept. But I also dreamed.

_It was Geonosis. I was running through the canyons, breathing hard. Blasterfire echoed through the narrow sandstone gorges, and I followed its sounds. Chevron was there; I knew it. I was no Jedi, but I _felt_ him there. I had to get to him before it was too late. I kept running, my pace quickening as the faraway blasterfire decreased. Something was going to go terribly wrong and I had to get there to stop it. _

_I raced into a darkened room, lungs burning from exhaustion. I stumbled into it, panting, and I was about to sink to my knees to a rest when I heard a feeble cry. Looking up, I found the results from a catastrophic battle. I looked up to see a hulking mass of metal vanish into the shadows, two lightsabers still gleaming viciously. And then I saw Chev. He was lying there, not twenty feet away; he was still breathing, but just barely. I picked myself and raced to him, gathering him into my arms as tears burned my eyes._

"_Rogue . . ." he whispered, sounding pained. "You made it . . . just in time . . . to say goodbye . . ."_

_I choked slightly as my throat tightened. My grip on him tightened accordingly, and I felt my breath leave me as I saw the hole just below his heart. I shook my head as the tears started. _

"_Who said anything about goodbyes?" I managed. "I came to get you out of here. C'mon, Chev; let's go."_

"_Not this time," he replied. "Sorry you got here too late . . . Wish I could've hung around . . . We could've . . . gone somewhere . . . Just the two of us . . . away from all this madness . . ."_

_He coughed weakly, and I just kept holding him. He reached up and brushed a bloodstained, gauntleted hand across my face. _

"_Sorry . . . guess I wasn't paying attention . . . You can get hurt when you don't . . . don't pay attention . . ."_

_His eyelids sagged, and I clutched him tightly._

"_Chev? C'mon, don't do this to me. We have to get out of here!"_

_He didn't reply. There were the sounds of metallic feet marching down the dusty corridors. I shook him slightly._

"_Chev! Oh, don't give out on me now!"_

_No response. The footsteps were coming closer. I could see the silhouettes of battle droids on the wall. Tears started down my cheeks as I felt Chev quietly exhale for the last time, and I pressed his head to my chest as I lightly kissed his forehead . . ._

Throughout the entire dream, I was thrashing like mad and tossing and turning violently. I started mumbling under my breath, hugging myself.

"Nonononono . . . I'm always too late . . . Not fair . . . I never come in time . . . No, no, Chev . . ."

I thrashed again, moaning. I just wanted those images _gone_ from my head. Now.

"Cheeeeevvvv . . ." I sobbed. "No, no, no, no . . . _CHEVRON!_"

I awoke with a gasp and a scream, and I felt sweat bead on my forehead and trickle down my temple as I sat bolt upright. I took a moment to glance around the room. Everything was as quiet as—forgive this metaphor; it's tactless for the situation—a tomb. Boba didn't even stir at my cry, and I knew Larra was still too much in pain from her hangover that even if a Republic assault ship crashed through the hotel room's window, she wouldn't awake. I slid deeper into my chair, burying myself under my blanket and stifling a sniffle. I hated those dreams. Being there in time for him to die in my arms was the worst of them all, I felt. But I wondered to myself why it still hurt so much. I squeezed my eyes shut and heaved a shuddering sigh.

A few moments later, I felt a hand gently taking my shoulder and a voice whispering to me in the darkness.

"Hey, _vod_, it's okay . . . It's only a dream . . ."

Well, my cry must have awakened Larra, for that was who was holding my shoulder. I exhaled heavily but didn't look up at her.

"But it happens too often . . ." I said, my voice muffled by the blanket which I still had tugged over my head. "Every night . . . I can't even sleep anymore because of them! Do you know what that's like to see him die _every night_?"

I peeked up over the edge of my blanket, feeling my eyes get dry and scratchy. I knew my face was red; it normally turned a strange shade of crimson whenever I'd been crying. I jabbed a thumb at the charred hole in "my" chestplate.

"Just once, I want to dream something _happy_ and not wake up clutching _this_," I sighed.

She nodded understandingly, taking a seat on the low table beside me and crossing her arms.

"Don't I know it," she murmured. "Think being on a year-long mental guilt trip doesn't still linger? Trust me, if it ain't me moping over him, it's dreams . . . scary ones, at that. Always pointing out it was _my_ fault."

"Well, if you're expecting me to blame you," I said, "I'm not about to. It was an . . . an accident. If I were to say 'casualty of war,' it'd make him sound like . . . like a nothing. A nobody. Like he was just some guy who died, so we should say 'Too bad' and move on with our lives. But he was more than that to me, and to you, too."

I don't really know what I meant by that other than "He wasn't a nobody to us." He was her brother, really. But to me . . . Well, you already know what he was to me. I don't need to review, so I'll just leave it at that. All I knew was that it was beginning to feel like Larra was my sister, like we could talk about this stuff and understand each other. Frankly, I began to feel very upset that she would be transferred to the commando squads and I might never see her again. We could really get to know each other and become great friends. But back to the conversation. I sighed again.

"But . . . you don't have dreams where you _are_ him, do you?" I asked. "Where you feel the . . . the blade?"

I doubted she did. Or rather, I _hoped_ she _didn't_. I didn't want her to have to experience those hellish nightmares for herself. They were miserable. Those were the ones after which Boba would have to console me.

"No . . ." she replied slowly, "but for me, it's . . . it's different versions of his death. But there's one that . . . that really makes me sick. You might not have noticed, but I threw one that I'd made myself . . . and in _that_ dream he didn't die until that grenade went. I—I can't help but feel as if I _am_ guilty in some manner."

She sighed morosely and I reached over to clamp a firm hand on her shoulder. I couldn't say anything for a good ten minutes; I could only squeeze. I knew from experiences that sometimes words didn't help. Sometimes all that would help was a hand gripping me and offering that measure of support. After a while, I finally found my voice and took a breath to speak.

"I'm sorry to hear that we both suffer so," I whispered. "I had . . . hoped . . . that taking revenge would make those dreams stop. I'd been so _sure_ that Kenobi was the one I needed to find . . . But now there are _two_ targets. One is a monster of a machine, and the other is _another_ Jedi. I can't fight those!"

I buried my head in my hands, exhaling heavily. All I wanted was peace in my life. I wanted the nightmares to cease and the vulnerability I was feeling to just go away. I'd always been so tough, so strong . . . but now I felt like the universe was going to collapse in on itself around me any minute. I sat there, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself, and Larra slid closer, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

"You know," she said gently. "There's a little bit more bad news . . ."

I glanced up quickly, eyebrows furrowed. What could get worse? Oh, I don't know. Maybe the Republic was losing the war. Maybe the Separatists had come out with a clone army of their own! But I'll admit; I doubted that. They weren't _that_ intelligent.

"What?" I asked. "What's happened? Who've we lost _now_?" Just then, I noticed a red stripe painted on her right forearm guard. It completely circled the guard, and it looked as if it'd been touched up a few times to prevent fading. "What's that mean?"

Larra gently rubbed the stripe, looking at me with sadness in her eyes.

"Sevvie," she replied. "Broke down just before Kenobi left. The Deltas, Chev, and I agreed on getting the stripes when we told them the news . . . so I guess it now has a double meaning . . ."

When I heard that, I got even more depressed than I had been before. My eyebrows furrowed, and I quickly looked away to hide the rising tears. Mentally, I berated myself for being so prone to tears that day.

"Oh, poor Sevvie . . . What did they do to him? Did they . . . stick him in front of a firing squad? We've lost so many . . ."

By that, I meant "us." By "us," I meant the gang comprised of three ARCs, four commandos, and me. All that I knew were left were Larra and me. I didn't even know where good ol' Ace and his boys were, and if I had, I didn't know if they were still alive. I turned and looked at Larra, realizing fully that my eyes were watering.

"What's happened to us?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I have no idea, not since Chev and I found him half-senseless . . . I just don't know anymore . . ."

I sighed heavily as I wrapped my arms around myself and sank deeper into my chair, as if hoping it would swallow me whole. But whoever heard of an armchair eating someone? I hadn't up to that point, but there's always a first time for everything. Besides, it'd ease the pain I felt inside . . .

"I'd give anything to go back to the days before the war," I admitted. "I'd love to return to the days when the worst thing that would happen would be you and me going at it again. But now we've lost our _vode_? Larra, I don't think I can take much more of this! I'll either break down myself, or I'll get careless and killed . . . or I'll just do it myself."

Yeah, I meant suicide. I wasn't sure if I meant it, but . . . it sounded good at the time. I shrugged and looked out the window, feeling insanely hopeless. What I wouldn't have given for a bubbly happiness. Larra grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

"If you kill yourself, what'll happen to Boba, huh? He _needs_ you. You're his sister. You kill yourself, and you'll just abandon him in this galaxy. This isn't just about you!"

"I know," I sighed, glancing at Boba, who was still soundly asleep in his bed with his blanket tugged up over his head. Force, I did love that kid. "He's the only thing that's kept me going when I've wanted to just lie down, say 'I quit,' and die."

"I think he's counting on _both_ of us to stick around," Larra added. "And besides, I've already broken down once; still working on the repair. Once Kal calls, I'm pretty much on my own. And, you know . . ." She flicked a slightly conspiratorial glance at me, smirking slightly. "Perhaps we can take one each; you can go get your vengeance on . . . Jango's death, and I'll go get mine on Chev's. I swore that once, and I don't go back on my promises."

"I could," I shrugged. "But I doubt I'd be held in very high regard for murdering a Jedi. Even though I went after Kenobi, you know me. I don't like killing . . . I just need to . . . heal."

I placed a hand on my gut where the gash from Kenobi's lightsaber had been. I guessed that such was the price for hunting a Jedi and stupidly running him. I turned back to her and tilted my head.

"Maybe . . . maybe you'll get lucky, y'know? End up with the greatest squad in the entire army. Maybe you'll end up with a bunch of guys who really care about you."

"I just hope so. I never cared for the first bunch I trained with anyway; beat me up before I got my courage up to beat on _them_."

I nodded. I'd heard from Chev and Sevvie the tale of how the "littlest trooper," as it were, gathered the strength to pound her rather abusive training group into the ground. They told of the group of ten-year-old (though they'd only been around for five years) commandos who helped Larra get braver. Somehow, I'd always put Ace and his boys in that position. They just seemed the sort of men who would help out a kid in distress and not care that she was a girl. Still gazing out across the panorama of Coronet at night, I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders.

"I wish you luck in whatever you do," I said to Larra. "You're like the big sister who keeps me in line."

I turned and grinned at her, and before I stopped myself, I actually _hugged_ her. She really _was_ like _ner ori'vod_: my big sister. The way she was trying to hold me back and keep me from getting really "in for it" back when I first saw Kenobi kind of proved that for me. She stiffened at my hug—apparently she'd never been truly opened to things like that—before gingerly returning it.

"And you and Boba are like the two kids that get in my hair all the time," she chuckled.

Kids, indeed. Boba was eleven; at twenty, I was little more than a child myself. What was unusual to think about was that only three years before, when I was still technically a child, my mind had been almost completely overrun by thoughts of marrying Chev and giving myself to him on our wedding night. Well, like _that_ was ever gonna happen. I shrugged slightly and nodded.

"Yeah, me n' Boba are the pair of crazies that can't stay out of scrapes," I laughed, only half-joking. "I just can't wait until he's old enough to hunt and pull his weight. Maybe then this whole survival business will be easier."

"It'll be interesting to see how he does on his own," Larra nodded in agreement after tossing a glance over at Boba, who had wrapped himself up in a near cocoon of blankets.

"I'm will refuse to let him out of my sight, though," I said. "He's all I've got left . . . We'll hunt together. You just wait, Lar; if ever you hear his name on the HoloNet, you just remember that I'm back there somewhere keepin' the ship in the air, keepin' us together."

And that was what I intended to do, too. We'd always be together. Rogue and Boba Fett: bounty hunters. Sounds like a good business card. Almost has sort of a "Have blaster, will travel" sound to it. Not to mention we owned a ship that had originally been designed for patrolling the prison colony on Oovo 4. I shrugged again and glanced at Larra.

"Well, uh . . . g'night, I guess. We'll move on in the morning, I suppose."

"All right . . . Night, Rogue."

She climbed up from the low table and crawled back into her bed, drifting off quickly into a sleep that looked so deep it was driving me nuts because I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep like that. I watched her for a minute, wondering if I should've said thanks for talking to me. It got a lot of things off my mind; I suddenly didn't feel so depressed and alone anymore. I silently hoped that her transfer wouldn't come in for a very long time because for the first time in a long time, I had somebody I could talk to. I had found a friend, I hoped. Happy and feeling somewhat optimistic, I snuggled down in my chair and curled up in a ball, and my eyelids slowly drooped as I slipped off into a quiet sleep that was, for the first time, undisturbed by nightmares of lightsaber-wielding cyborgs.


	20. Parting Ways

**Chapter Twenty – Parting Ways**

Larra spent the next few weeks with Boba and me, and frankly, I was glad to have her along. She was a great help whenever I had a job, since it never hurts to have an extra pair of hands around. Sometimes we'd sit up late at night and talk about the "good ol' days," then we'd laugh about how we sounded like old women, calling them that. There were a couple occasions on which Boba would shuffle in, looking quite sleepy-eyed, and inform us that we were being too noisy. Then we'd whisper apologies and go back to giggling—more quietly, this time—about the stupidly funny jokes Sevvie used to crack. We grew to be like sisters, really. I know that's a commonly used metaphor, but it was true. And what was better was that she was getting a chance at something of a "normal" life. She only wore her armor because she wanted to and not because she was required to. But, of course, she was a rebellious one, so she suggested we both get our ears pierced.

Yep, you heard me: _pierced_. Like with earrings? Yep. Needless to say, my Mando upbringing was screaming with protest; it was highly unusual for a Mandalorian to wear earrings because they posed a threat in combat. If an opponent could grab a hold of the earring and pull, they could seriously injure your ear—maybe even rip a nice gash in the cartilage. I voiced this opposition, but she waved me off, reminding me we wouldn't be fighting with our ears visible. Every time we'd ever be in combat, she told me, we'd be wearing out helmets. Well, I hadn't thought of that. My feminine chromosomes then made me actually _want_ to get my ears pierced, so one day while we were visiting Ord Mantell, we decided to do it. I'm not sure if it was I or she who had the "I'll do it if you do" mindset; it might've been me since she was always the go-getter. But we both got our ears pierced. She got a glittering stud in one (yes, _one_) of her ears and I got tiny hoops in the upper contours of mine near my hairline. It actually made me feel really good to get that done even though my ears were a bit red and sore. As we left the piercing salon-slash-tattoo parlor, I batted my short hair back to allow the hoops to catch and reflect the sunlight. I wanted everyone to notice the new addition to my look.

"You were right, Larra," I chuckled, feeling quite cheerful, "this isn't so bad. They make me feel . . . well, _pretty_ even under the armor."

I glanced over at her and nodded approvingly at the glinting stud she'd chosen.

"I like yours," I said. "But you just can't stand matching sets, can you?"

I grinned, snickering, as she reached up and rubbed her ear. Hers was redder than mine; they'd gone after her ear with a slightly bigger needle. She tossed a glance at me and tilted her head.

"Nope, can't stand it. But it still hurts . . ."

"Hey, I'd give you a shot of bacta, but it might seal up the hole." I flashed her an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

We walked back to the docking bays and the _Slave I_, where Boba had chosen to wait for us after specifically stating he did _not_ want to be anywhere near "girly stuff." Yep, he was your typical pre-teen boy. If it was related to females, it _had_ to be covered in female germs. As if our germs are any more different from his. Hah.

As we neared the ship, my comlink buzzed at my hip, and I grabbed it in a split second.

"Rogue here," I said. "Speak."

"_Hadn't thought you'd still be in range,"_ said a familiar voice on the other end.

I stared at the comlink before my eyes went wide and my face lit up in a grin.

"_Kal?!_ Wow, long time, no speak!" My cheer quickly faded into gloom as I realized there was only one reason for his call. "Wait a minute. This isn't about . . ."

"_Larra's transfer? Afraid so."_

Well, that guy sure knew how to ruin a girl's day. I exchanged a mournful glance with Larra before sighing heavily.

"_Osik_," I muttered to the comlink. I could hear Kal chuckle on the other end; he knew who'd taught me that word: _he_ had. "I was just getting used to having her around."

I saw Larra's eyes flash sadly as her shoulders slumped ever so slightly. This was one of those rare occasions when she'd gone without her helmet (to her, that probably felt like running around naked), so I could clearly see the sadness in her face. I reached over and gripped her shoulder, trying to offer a smile of support. She took the comlink from me for a moment and exhaled deeply.

"But . . ." she began, as if offering a protest, "I was getting used to being—well, _semi_-normal . . ." She sighed and shrugged. "All right, where and who?"

"_It was the one with the most pressing need since these guys have been insanely busy lately,"_ Kal replied, something of a smile creeping into his voice, _"but I think you'll like 'em. They're at the Republic commando barracks on Coruscant; you should go as soon as you can."_

I retrieved my comlink from Larra's hand, still gripping her shoulder. I heaved an exasperated sigh. He had failed to answer my question.

"But _who_, Kal?" I asked, running out of patience.

He laughed, causing me to roll my eyes. If he got any more cryptic and frustrating, I'd high-tail it back to Kamino and literally sit on him for it. (I chose "sit" because anything else would be doing harm against one of my favorite people in the universe. That I would not allow.)

"_Like I'd tell you,"_ he replied with a snicker. _"Larra, just do me a favor and tell ol' Ace 'hi' from me, all right?"_

My jaw dropped, and the comlink nearly followed, but I managed to keep a tight enough hold on it. I laughed happily; at least I knew my favorite commandos were still kicking!

"No way!" I cried. "No freakin' _way_!"

I heard an "Mm-hmm" from Kal as I turned and looked at Larra. She actually looked a bit confused; I wondered if that wasn't her year hiatus acting up again. Her memories could get a bit spotty at times, and I watched her curiously to see if she'd figure it out.

"Uh, who?" she asked at first, but then her eyes went wide. "Wait . . . as in . . . _YES!!_ I'm with Ace's squad!"

Talk about irony, huh? I somehow figured that Kal had set it up like that so Larra would be with folks she knew instead of total strangers. As Larra beamed and chortled happily, I silently thanked the Force that the soldiers like her had somebody like Kal looking out for them. He loved the clones he trained as if they were his own children; come to think of it, he'd treated me like that, too. After all, if we must review, _he_ was the one who'd taught me my little knife trick. I was about to slip off into a long reverie, but Kal's voice on the comlink caught my attention.

"_Good luck, then, Larra. They're waiting for you."_

Without even waiting for us to say goodbye, he closed the connection, and my comlink switched off. I couldn't help but be proud of myself for slipping him my comm's frequency once upon a time. But as soon as his voice was gone and Larra and I were alone again, I actually sighed sadly as I looked at her. I honestly felt as if I was losing a part of me by losing my sister.

"Well, uh . . ." I said. "I'm really gonna miss you. I hadn't thought the transfer would come through so quick . . ."

"Me neither," she admitted. "Well, guess I still need to get my gear together. Left a bunch in the ship . . . Then I'll go track down a shuttle. Best to get there under my own steam, anyway."

I nodded slowly, and we returned to the _Slave_, where I brought Boba up to date on events. He, too, looked sad that Larra was leaving, and she actually gave the kid a hug before scooping up the bag with all her gear and slinging it over her shoulder. I waited for her at the end of the loading ramp, where I gave her a quick hug, knowing she didn't really cotton to much physical contact.

"I guess this is goodbye, huh?" I said, but I quickly stopped myself and shook my head decisively. "No . . . not goodbye. I'll say what Chev and I used to always say to each other: 'Until then.' That meant we weren't saying we'd never see each other again; we were swearing to meet again someday." I reached over and squeezed her hand. "So, until then? Trust me, I'll track you down if I get too lonely."

I smirked slightly, and she nodded, giving me a small smile as she returned the pressure on my hand.

"Until then."

She shouldered her bag and tucked her helmet under her arm, headed for the opposite end of the spaceport. She never once looked back, and I found myself wishing she had so I could wave frantically like a young child. As she disappeared into the crowds on her way to what I hoped was a new life for her, Boba came up alongside me.

"I'm gonna miss her," was all he said, and I nodded.

"Me, too, _Bo'ika_."

We watched her become yet another in an unending stream of numbers. We watched until we could barely see the unique colors of her armor. We watched until our eyes hurt to try to see her anymore, and when that happened, I ushered Boba back into the _Slave I_. Within a few minutes, we were off for the space lanes again, and I couldn't help but feel that we'd embarked on yet another day of a miserable existence. We were off into a galaxy filled with losers and nobodies, off whom we'd more than likely make a credit. I still had most of what Kenobi had brought me; we weren't completely destitute, so I didn't have to pick up hunting again right away. But it was still depressing to feel myself take my brother and go back out into that dog-eat-dog world of bounty hunters, all of whom spent their time squabbling over measly bounties that weren't worth the time or effort more times than not.

And you know what? That first night back on our own, my nightmares came back.


	21. Fast Forwarding

**Chapter Twenty-One – Fast-Forwarding**

Ready to do a little skipping ahead in time? All right, let's go. Between Larra's assignment to the commandos and the next most interesting thing that happened in my life, there were about four years of bounty hunting and roaming the galaxy. When Boba turned thirteen, I sent him out on his first solo mission, and he came back with colors that flew better than mine ever had. I had to admit, that was _Jang'buir_'s blood shining through. It shone through in everything he did, from the way he stood to the way he talked. As he grew, his voice started to change, and I heard it take on _Jang'buir_'s accent. But more than just his physical traits underwent some change. _He_ started to change. His personality began to be different. It was as if once he'd gotten the taste of bounty hunting, he couldn't resist it. He liked it. It was making him into his father, if that doesn't sound ironic enough for you. And he began drawing away from me. More and more, he started acting as if I was a fifth wheel and I was in his way. Here I was, the girl who'd practically raised him since _Jang'buir_'s death, taught him how to hunt, all that stuff, and he was being a regular little ingrate. But I was upset that he was so drastically pulling away from me. It scared me because I didn't want to be on my own. And we'd sworn to always hunt together.

But over the years, Boba and I gradually grew apart. He got more independent, and I got a bit clingier. I guess he saw me as a weakling who couldn't let her _vod'ika_ go and be on his own. Sometimes, he'd take bounties and expect me to stay "home" (meaning wherever we were at the time) by myself, but I'd go along for the ride. I always said I could teach him something new, but maybe he was right. Maybe I really was becoming a paranoid older sister who couldn't let her kid brother out of her sight for five minutes without freaking out. I couldn't help it! Since I lost _Jang'buir_ and Chev, Boba was all I had! Sometimes that stupid little grin of his—which was fading quickly as he grew older, a fact that unnerved me—was all that could keep me going when I felt like throwing in the towel. And trust me, that feeling overwhelmed me a lot, and it was often paired with loneliness and sadness whenever I thought that I might be losing my brother to our father's bloody vocation.

The year Boba turned fifteen, the Clone Wars, as they came to be called, had been over for two years or so. The Republic had crumbled and become the Galactic Empire under the fist of the former Supreme Chancellor, but I guess that if you've been studying galactic history, then you'll know that. The Chancellor renamed himself "Emperor" and took over. I didn't want to know how bad things were going to get in the universe if they were already pretty terrible since the Empire's rise two years ago. Anyway, the Emperor's little pet kath hound, Darth Vader, started handing out bounties on ex-Republic officials like candy . . . and Boba got hungry. He wanted the challenge of the hunt and kill, but the heaps of money being offered didn't hurt, either. Me, I just wanted to give up bounty hunting and settle down on Corellia or something with a lap dog named Spot. But Boba reminded me of the vow I'd made that we'd always hunt together. He used that vow, which I'd sworn on _haat, ijaa, haa'it_—thereby sealing it—to get us across the galaxy to Coruscant. The day after we arrived and checked into a low end hotel on the low end of town, I awoke to find the _Slave I_ gone and a note from Boba beside my bed. He said he'd gone for the bounties and was laying claim to the _Slave_ because it had been _his_ father's ship . . . as if "_Aliit ori'shya tal'din_" had meant _nothing_ to him and _Jang'buir_ was never my father, too. Needless to say, it angered me to know that he thought nothing of practically abandoning me while he ran off and chased fortune and glory. And he didn't even swear to return. That kid was getting too big for his britches, but I wondered if that hadn't been my fault in some way. After all, who'd agreed to teach him after _Jang'buir_ died . . . ? Exactly.

But Boba _had_ been considerate enough (in all his high-and-mighty, "I'm fifteen, I don't need you to mother me" smug glory) to leave me several thousand credits—enough for me to buy my own ship and get myself back on my feet. The fact that he hadn't left me completely destitute gave me some hope that he hadn't let it slip his mind that we were still family. Of course, there was always the doubt that he still considered me to be his _ori'vod_ . . . I wondered if he'd left just to get out from under me. Well, I decided that if he was going to play it that way, then I could, too. If he was going to be Vader's personal hunter of sorts, then two could play that game. I would hire myself out to the Empire . . . if not for any reason besides keeping an eye on my little brother.

I checked out of the hotel that morning and caught an air taxi down to the docking bays across town to do a little shopping for a ship I could use. I wasn't exactly in the market for another _Firespray_-class like the _Slave I_ was; if anything, I wanted a cockpit I could walk into. The words "old smuggler freighter" came to mind, so that was what I went hunting for. And trust me, it wasn't that hard to find one; there was an overabundance of serviceable old freighters—some even a couple decades old. I finally purchased a beat-up old thing and shelled out the relatively cheap price tag of two thousand credits. Of course, I had to spend a couple thousand more to get it repaired, tuned up, repainted, and refueled, but I didn't mind. I had a great sense of excitement that I was getting my own ship at long last. When all was ready and the little ship was truly mine, I walked around the side and discovered a surprise. Painted there across the right side of the hull was a long string of sideways _v_'s. Staggered by the irony of that, I christened my ship the _Chevron_ after a certain ARC and those _v_'s. But I couldn't very well forget where I'd come from, so I got myself a can of paint and painted the Fett emblem across the front. I wanted to remember that despite Jango's untimely demise, we Fetts still lived; I wanted the galaxy to know that. And I wanted Boba to know that if he ever saw that emblem in the _Slave I_'s rearview mirror, I was still looking out for him.

After all was in order and I'd become decently familiar with the _Chevron_'s controls, I strapped myself in and high-tailed it for the Imperial Palace. When I docked outside and walked in, I found myself taken aback by the splendor of the décor. Who was this Emperor that he could afford to live in the lap of luxury while the people in "his" galaxy were living in poverty and fear? But I swallowed that, grateful to be wearing my helmet and shielding my darting eyes. As I walked toward the front desk, I felt every eye in the place glued to me, from the janitors to a cocky captain whose helmetless face looked so familiar . . . like one of the clones from years past. But I figured that any leftover GAR soldiers had been brainwashed with Imperial propaganda and added to the Empire's troop rosters.

I approached the receptionist at the front desk, and she looked at me and studied me for a few moments. I decided right then and there that I did _not_ like her.

"So, the last Fett has come to join us, yes?" she said, and I stiffened.

"You might say that," I answered, feeling quite insulted by the emphasis she'd placed on my last name.

"Well, it's about time," she chuckled, flipping me a small datapad. "Lord Vader's been expecting you. Follow the map and go on up."

I murmured an un-heartfelt thanks as I glanced down at the 'pad and headed for a nearby turbolift. Okay, so I was expected? What had Boba told him of me? Why had Vader been so sure I'd follow my brother? And what did that receptionist mean by "It's about time"? So many questions raged through my mind as the turbolift shuttled me up to the higher levels of the Palace—the levels normally considered off-limits to civilians. Something tightened in my gut as the turbolift ground to a halt and the doors opened to reveal a lavish hallway decorated in deep tones of crimson. I think it might've been anger I was feeling—anger that this "Emperor" _dared_ to live in such luxury while whose beneath his rule suffered. I stepped from the lift and turned down a corridor, following the map loaded in my 'pad. When I rounded a corner, I found a large portrait of the Emperor there on the wall. His expression was so smug, so cold and calculating, that I wrenched off my helmet, shot that portrait a glare, and spit at it. It left a nice splotch of wet that trailed down his forehead. I snickered as I replaced my helmet and kept going. About five hundred feet from the portrait, I was met by a pair of Stormtroopers, and I wondered if it was possible to be imprisoned simply for spitting on the Emperor's likeness. I paused as they approached.

"You, bounty hunter," said the first. "You are Rogue Fett, are you not?"

"The one and only," I replied tightly, thankful I'd gotten my helmet on before these goons showed up.

"Lord Vader's waiting to see you."

_Tell me something I _didn't_ know, Shiny,_ I thought.

"He's getting impatient."

"Then why are we standing around?" I barked. "Go on, you Stormies. Lead on."

They started somewhat at the treatment I'd just given them, and I felt a bit guilty. After all, I'd grown up with men in armor very similar to theirs. But then again, I was trying to give the appearance of a "real" bounty hunter, and "real" bounty hunters were known to be mean and nasty. What, had these guys been expecting me to be nice and sweet and all full of hearts and flowers? Were they _nuts_? I just shrugged as the first trooper turned and led me off down the hall and the second dropped into line behind me. His rifle was aimed right at my back, so I figured that if I suddenly got any ideas of making a break for it, I'd have a blaster bolt right through my spine. Call me crazy, but I personally wanted to do everything possible to prevent that from happening.

We wandered through a dozen more corridors before finally coming to a huge steel door. The leading Stormtrooper went to a control panel and typed at it for a minute before speaking into it.

"Sir, the bounty hunter's here."

The door hissed open, and shivers rolled down my spine. I was led into a huge, dimly lit room that was maybe the size of a small hangar bay. In the center of the room was something that appeared to be a large metallic egg-shaped chamber. I didn't like the feeling of cold that washed over me as I was led into the room . . . It reminded me of the feeling I'd had when I'd first arrived on Geonosis. It could only be described as the sensation of death. My fight-or-flight response kicked in, and I personally wanted to flee. Whatever that chamber meant was _not_ good, and I wanted to get my _shebs_ out of there. The muscles in my lower legs and thighs tensed as they always did when my personal safety was threatened, and I felt that that was certainly the case in this place. I swallowed a bit hard, still immensely grateful for my helmet, as the chamber opened and flooded bright white light across the floor. Larra had helped me upgrade my helmet with a polarizing feature on the visor, which meant that it would shield my eyes from intense light. As my visor darkened at the flood of light, I was eternally grateful to her for her help. But I stiffened, feeling fear begin to gnaw at my stomach, for out of the center of that chamber rose a hulking black figure. The Stormtroopers at my sides snapped to attention as horrible raspy breathing echoed off the sparse walls and the figure approached.

"Lord Vader," said the first trooper, "the bounty hunter."

So _this_ was Darth Vader, the devil's accomplice who had taken my brother and turned him into a killer. Needless to say, I felt more than a little disturbed by his presence. Even I, a non-Jedi, could feel the waves of evil just streaming off him. I nearly shuddered but reconsidered, figuring my fear could be detected in a heartbeat. Vader studied me, but I didn't make eye contact with his mask. Yet I noticed that even though I tried to appear indifferent, it felt as though he was still gazing straight at the horizontal cross of my visor. Whoever was under that mass of black plastoid and metal knew a thing or two about showing respect to Mandalorians.

"Welcome, Rogue Fett," he said in a deep voice that rumbled like thunder. I was certain the floor panels were vibrating beneath my feet. "It's a _pleasure_ to finally meet you."

_It's a pleasure to have thoughts of strangling you, you _chakaar

"Indeed," I replied, icing my voice. "I do hope you don't plan to waste my time here, _Lord Vader_. I don't have all day for idle chatter."

"Of course," he answered with what sounded like a chuckle of . . . pleasure? What, was he glad I was being snarky? "I'm certain you're a very busy woman. But I know that you cannot ignore the call of the hunt, Rogue."

_Don't use my first name!_

"Perhaps not," I said, trying to be brief and to the point. Short, concise sentences had always worked for _Jang'buir_; I was hoping they'd work for me. "I hear you're offering good money for the kind of work I do."

"Indeed. And if you're half the hunter your brother is, you will be a wealthy hunter, at that."

_Don't mention _Bo'ika_, after what _you_ turned him into._

"How much money we talkin'?" I asked, crossing my arms and looking up into his mask. "I don't come cheap."

"More than you've probably ever received with the petty hunting you seem to have favored over the years," Vader said with a sneer. "Those were like chicken thieves. _These_, my _dear_, are the cream of the criminal crop. No doubt a challenge even to one such as yourself."

_And don't flatter me, haar'chak!_

"I doubt it," I retorted. "I have yet to see the Empire post a decent bounty."

Vader stiffened, and I knew I'd touched a nerve. Beneath my helmet, I smirked proudly. Any digs I could make at him and his Emperor would just bring me the greatest enjoyment. He stared at me for several long moments, the otherwise silent room filled with nothing but his terrible breathing. I felt my resolve leaving me again, but I didn't show it. After a moment, he took a breath and spoke.

"Perhaps you'll think differently once you see what we are prepared to offer."

"Perhaps. But I doubt it."

Vader returned to his chamber for a moment and retrieved a small datapad. He brought it to me, and I snatched it from his hand, still putting on the air of an arrogant bounty hunter with nothing but blood money on the brain. I flipped it on and nearly fainted as several dozen bounties appeared on the screen. Each one had prices with five digits . . . over ten thousand credits each. The smallest bounty there was nine thousand; he was just an extortionist who'd fled the Empire after getting caught. I flipped through the list, still trying to stand up straight. Well, _no wonder_ Boba had left to hunt for the Empire. With that kind of money . . . Whew. But as if the insanely large bounties weren't enough to shock me out of my boots, what really got me right between the eyes was that all of them were wanted _dead_. There was no option; there was no "or alive" tacked on. And most of them weren't even true criminals; they were simply ex-Republic officials who'd made a run for it when the Empire rose to power. _And_ there were a few Jedi listed, too. I'd thought the Empire had made something of a "great purge" of the Jedi, but I supposed a few escaped. I kept scrolling through the list, and my knees almost buckled when I saw Kenobi's face there. They were offering _one hundred thousand credits_ for that guy?! Oh, sure, the money was great, but like I was going to hunt and kill a Jedi who'd spared _me_! I just about thrust the 'pad back into Vader's gloved hands, said "No thanks," left, and risked the blaster bolt to the spine, but then the little cogwheels got to turning. Half the bounties listed weren't for true criminals. If I were to somehow help them escape but then make it _look_ like they were dead . . . Then I could collect the money without doing a single murder. Well, so that was lying and a tad dishonest, but it was better than _murdering_ them! I decided that's what I'd do, but I didn't give Vader an immediate answer. I studied the 'pad for a moment more.

"See anything you like?" he asked suddenly. It sounded as if he was selling me a speeder!

"Yeah, I think so," I nodded. "These are . . . tempting."

"We thought you might think so. We were confident that large bounties would attract your attention."

_And who told you that, huh? Was it Boba? Because if it was, I'll cut his heart from his chest by way of his throat._

Okay, so I wasn't _really_ planning to take out Boba's heart through his throat . . . I just thought that if he'd tipped them off that big money would catch my eye, I'd beat him to a pile of rodent pulp. I tucked the 'pad into my pocket and glanced up at Vader.

"I'll do it," I said, and he nodded approvingly.

"Excellent. You know how to hunt; I will not have to refresh your memory. Simply bring us proof of the deed when you complete a hunt, and you will be paid in full."

"I look forward to doing business with you."

Well, I _wasn't_, but if I could somehow get on the same bounties as Boba was, I could trail him across the galaxy and make sure he wasn't turning into something I knew he wasn't. I gave Vader a slight bow, cringing inwardly the whole time, before I turned and left that awful room. I was grateful to be back in the well-lit hallway, but as I left, I noticed that those Stormtroopers weren't escorting me back down the corridors. They were still at Vader's side; he was talking to them. I caught what he said as I left: "Keep an eye on that one. She is not to be trusted."

Ooh, untrustworthy, am I? Well, I guess it's time to see just how well I can avoid getting caught by your little boys in shiny white diapers while _not_ killing a "wanted dead" bounty. Take that and shove it, "Lord Vader."


	22. Life as a Real Hunter

**Chapter Twenty-Two – Life as a **_**Real**_** Hunter**

Well, I did pretty well for myself the first few hunts. I went after the ex-Republic officials first, convinced them to run for their lives and do whatever people in hiding-slash-exile do, and then covered my trail with a series of explosions to make it look like they died painfully. Normally I convinced them to give me a personal item, as well as ID, so I could report to the Empire that I'd "taken care of" another thorn in their sides. It worked at first . . . The officials were grateful I wasn't trying to kill them, and the Empire was grateful that they no longer had these Republic people to worry about. Heh, like they'd cause sleep loss. Well, I guess to a guy like ol' Emperor Palpatine, they would. But it was none of my business. I just "killed" them and then collected my money, no questions.

My problem with all of this was that I rarely saw Boba. Even when I tracked him specifically for that purpose, he seemed to know I was after him, and he took an alternate route. On certain occasions, he'd come out of hyperspace and make a complete route change before darting off again. I finally had to convince myself that I'd lost my brother for good, and _that_ was a hard thing to do. Knowing he was gone to the "dark side" of bounty hunting—the lust for the kill and then getting _paid_ for it—broke my heart. I'd tried to hard to teach him the way I did things . . . I couldn't help but wonder if all that had happened was in some way _my_ fault. After all, if I hadn't tried to teach him to be a rather scrupulous bounty hunter, he probably wouldn't have rebelled and turned out so badly. And you know what? Just thinking about that made me miss _Jang'buir_ more than I ever had before. And why, you ask? Well, when I was a girl and I'd felt bad, he'd come along with a few sentences that always encouraged me. I remember this one that I had a nightmare and he woke me from it. I can't quite remember how it went, but I do recall that the nightmare had frightened me somethin' fierce. And I remember that as he turned away after getting me resettled in bed, I apologized for being afraid. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at me before informing me that to fear was a tool. Courage was not the absence of fear, but it was knowing how to conquer that fear. He told me that when he was just starting out as a kid, he'd been afraid a couple of times, too. (Looking back on it, it's hard to see how _he_ could ever have been afraid, but I guess we all are. It's human nature, after all.) But he said he'd gotten over it and feared hardly anything anymore. At the time, that'd brought me such strength to know that fear was conquerable. But then, losing my brother like that . . . I just felt lonely and _very_ vulnerable. Of course, I had a good reason for that, too. I had eyes on me.

They weren't any eyes; they were the Empire's eyes. Vader had gotten suspicious about the way I was hunting. He'd gotten suspicious when I'd claimed more than a few bounties but somehow failed to bring in a body as proof. I always brought a personal article, and that aroused suspicion. So he put spies on me. A couple of times, I found them out and called them on it, but they just tried to separate me from my life, so I had to kill them. I'd been doing so well on the bounties, thinking I was doing so well by being so clever, but apparently I wasn't clever enough. One day, Vader summoned me to him and gave me a full lecture on how I wasn't doing my job. The whole time, I wanted to tear his head from his shoulders and scream at him that I was nothing like my brother; I couldn't kill just because someone told me to. And I certainly didn't like getting paid for shedding blood. (Now how I was ever trained and raised as a bounty hunter, I have no idea. Don't even go there.) But I was quite unable to tell him any of this, so I kept my mouth shut. But then he gave me an assignment: there was a group of rogue ex- Republic commandos on the loose. They had been captured several months earlier in a trap set by the Empire and had been "treated" at this . . . place . . . called Lusankya. I'd heard it mentioned a few times in passing, but other than that, I knew nothing of it. But those poor commandos had gotten their minds completely wiped there; apparently, the Empire had been trying to convert them into Imperial agents. Well, from what I was told, it didn't work. Two of the commandos' minds failed to be completely erased, and they escaped. The others were sent to more extreme conditioning and eventually became one of the most valuable commando units in the 501st, but—and here's where it gets interesting—the two that escaped managed to take the others and get away with them! Personally, I was glad of it. Any commandos that were still hanging around were Clone War veterans, and just the words "Republic commando" brought the Deltas and Larra to my mind. But then my heart sank when Vader gave me my mission: track down these escaped prisoners and _kill them_. There can be no trickery, no mistakes, he said. No attempt at masking another escape with a giant explosion.

And just how did he expect to keep me from helping them get away? Well, it was quite simple. He had other bounty hunters trailing me with orders to bring me back alive if I failed. And if I failed, Lusankya would be waiting for _me_, and _I_ would be "reconditioned" into a killing monster. Needless to say, that was a tough pill to swallow. I didn't want to kill people I'd probably grown up around; heck, I just didn't want to _kill_! I'd have to be pretty clever to help them get away and not be found out. But Vader's little (little, _indeed_) threat got to me, and I quickly agreed to do the job as I'd been told to do. I think that day was the fastest I'd ever left Vader's presence; I was in the _Chevron_ and out in space in under ten seconds, I think.

He gave me nothing to go with; I had nothing to start with that would help me find the missing commandos. It was all up to me. Frankly, it felt like another of those Mando passage rites . . . but maybe, I dunno, a thousand times worse. But I got out there, and I started _really_ hunting. I must've tracked them for a week, following every lead I could that had anything to do with foggy-minded commandos, and I was getting very close when, while cruising through the Rishi Maze, I lost them. They disappeared right off the face of my charts, and I was so frustrated and under the strain of Vader's haunting promise to me that I turned the _Chevron_ to the first familiar place: the white halls of Kamino.

Yep, I went back. Even after promising myself I'd never return to that place, I did anyway. I gave my identification and actually was permitted to land. That in itself surprised me; I'd expected the Kaminoans to have long forgotten me. They didn't; in fact, Taun We welcomed me with open arms. Talk about another surprise. All my life I'd been suspicious and apprehensive of her, but here she was, welcoming me inside and out of the rain just as if I'd been gone for a few days. She took me to the old Fett quarters; they were a bit different from a little redecorating and some renovations, but they were still there. They were clean and neat, and I felt as if I could get a little relaxed before going back out on the hunt. Of course, if it weren't for the whole mental institution theme they had going, what with the white walls, white floors, and white-skinned technicians in white lab coats . . . Goodness, you'd think I was in to have some neurons evaluated! But the compound _had_ changed. For one thing, it was _empty_. No longer were there identical-faced clones hurrying to and fro from one simulator to the next. The pod room, as I'd called it, was empty. Where once there were thousands of tiny embryos that would someday become strong soldiers, now there was nothing. No little five-year-old boys running around and playing on their down time . . . Nothing. That brought me sadness, actually. My first day there, I went for a walk around the place as I used to, and I passed the mess hall. I actually felt my heart clench as I looked in and saw the empty tables. I almost thought I heard the voices of Larra . . . the Delta boys . . . Sevvie with his jokes . . . and Chevron, but I didn't. It was silent. I hurried on.

That night, I slept, but my sleep was mingled with occasional nightmarish fragments. I was dreaming of what would otherwise be happy things, but being back at Kamino and having had Vader threaten me like he had caused my sweet memories to morph into horrible nightmares. I won't even tell you what they were about . . . I'll spare you that. But I know that one night, they were so bad, I actually rolled out of bed, actually tugged on my armor, and went for a walk. And yep, you guessed it. I was off around the compound. I found myself wandering past the pod room (formerly known as the Egg Lab; I wasn't so far off the mark), and I was on my way to see what had become of the old ARC barracks. I still disliked that . . . lab. It always gave me a sensation of anxiety to see it. But now . . . now there was also anguish and dread. Anguish because I knew what had become of most of the clones born in that place; dread because I might be forced to kill some, and very soon. I was about to dart across the catwalk toward the ARC barracks when I spotted somebody leaning against the railing and looking out across the empty chamber. Curiously, I moved closer, and as I did, I found it was a woman. Of course, I nearly jumped her, squealing "Larra!" . . . but I didn't. And why? Because even though this woman _looked_ like Larra, she wasn't in that black and navy armor. She was in good ol' fashioned civvies—civilian clothes. But she looked so much like Larra that it was frightening, and for a moment, I wondered if it was possible. I wandered over to her and leaned up against the rail beside her.

"Hi," I said, and she looked up. Her eyes were mournful, and my eyebrows furrowed with concern. "You look a bit depressed. Somethin' wrong?"

She gazed at me, studying me for several long moments, as if she was feeling the same sensation of familiarity as I had. She shrugged after a bit, as if preparing to tell me the tale of her morose feelings. I leaned forward slightly, preparing to listen. I'd been good at that: listening.

"A bit," she admitted with a heavy sigh. "I just helped rescue my brothers from the Empire; they tried to brainwash the lot of us, but we managed to get them to remember. There're still some holes, so we came here to help fill them in. Lots of memories for all of us here . . . well, except for one of our resident assassins."

"Huh," I replied. Force, this was fitting with the story Vader had told me. "No kidding? Well . . . I'm sort of hunting some escapees from . . . from Lusankya, but there's more than one brainwashing op across the galaxy, I guess. Thing is, I tracked them for a while then lost their trail. Guess it's for the better . . . They told me to kill 'em and I do _not_ like to kill."

Can anybody say "Amen"? If there's anybody out there who agrees with me, I'd like to hear from you! But my acquaintance nodded slowly as I looked out across the empty lab chambers.

"Huh. Well, I don't like killing; most of our missions for the Rebels are usually stealing some bit of code or other, no search-and-destroy . . . But I probably shouldn't have told you that, seeing as the Imps contracted you out . . ."

She trailed off, but I felt her eyes wander to my chestplate, her gaze locking firmly on the hole and the inverted _v_'s. I glanced up at her, and she quickly broke her gaze. My eyebrow arched slightly; okay, now she was _really_ beginning to remind me of Larra. She was so very reminding me of Lar that I was tempted to ask. But I didn't and just attempted to calm her fears about me and the Imps—a.k.a the Empire.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I don't like them . . . I just hunt for them because I have to. It's the only thing I know how to do to keep food in my mouth, upgrades in my rifle, and fuel in my ship. So I'm not some sort of rat." I paused and thought back to what she said about the Rebels. She was working for the Rebel Alliance? Wow. We could become very good friends! I rather admired those Rebels for standing up to old Emperor Wrinkle-Butt (ahem) like they were. "Rebels, huh? I'd heard they were really beginning to hold their own. At least they're standing up to the Emperor. It's about time somebody did . . . Especially since all the old GAR troopers are now Imps, too."

Just thinking about that made me sink into something of a temporary depression. Those poor guys . . . all of them were no doubt brainwashed and turned into soldiers who would obey the Empire without question. I thought back to the captain I'd seen in the lobby of the Imperial Palace; he looked too much like an old ARC to have been anything but. My newfound sympathizer looked at me with curiosity.

"Sounds like you knew some; you'll be surprised to know that my brothers and husband and I were too."

My eyebrows went up, and she was about to elaborate on that when suddenly a fully-armored, _very_ familiar figure stepped around the corner. My jaw went slack as I recognized the armor; even years of being away hadn't dulled those memories. But I'd thought he was dead . . . They drummed him out of the ARC corps! What the Force was Sevvie doing back?! I could barely believe my eyes. It _was_ him . . . but the mischievous gleam that had always been in his eyes was missing. He ambled around the corner, speaking to my acquaintance.

"Lar, Jarred's got more questions, if you can believe it . . . and Ryder's getting desperate to see you back, and—"

_Lar!_ I _knew_ it! It _was_ her! And Sevvie, too. I was so happy that I nearly tackled the both of them, but Sevvie ground to a halt and stared at me as soon as he saw me. His eyes flew to my chestplate, and I saw anger flush his face. His eyes went wide, and I immediately got a very bad feeling about the situation.

"Holy frack . . . How the hell did you get that?!" he screeched. "_HOW?!_"

He was absolutely livid as he jabbed a finger at my chestplate. Poor Larra just looked confused. I took a step back and lifted my hands in defense of myself. I knew right then that he didn't recognize me. Otherwise he would've greeted me more cheerfully before delving into the messy business of "How did you get that?!"

"Whoa, whoa, udesii!" I cried. "I can explain it all if you'll give me a minute without trying to kill me!" I sighed, rolling my shoulders back and preparing to humor him if he really didn't remember me. "I took it from the body of somebody very dear to me, and I'm guessing you knew him judging by your reaction. So if you're thinking I'm a grave robber, you're wrong. I'm a Mandalorian who's wearing part of a loved one's armor. Happy?"

Sevvie studied my face for a few long moments before his face was absolutely stricken with shock as he recognized me. While I probably should have felt happy that he did, I didn't. In fact . . . I felt dread.

"Rogue . . ." he stammered. For a moment, I thought he would be happy to see me, but it was evident that he wasn't by the way that he leaped in front of Larra. "Lar, get away from her! She's the hunter Vader's got after you all!"

"What?" Larra asked, still sorely confused, poor thing. "Sevvie, you've got a lot of explaining to do . . ."

That he did. He needed to explain why he'd changed so . . . why he was trying to rip my head off before I even got a chance to explain how I came into possession of Chevron's chestplate. On one hand, I felt so relieved that the friend I'd thought was dead really wasn't, but on the other, I felt immensely upset that he wasn't greeting me with open arms. I cringed slightly as he waved off Larra, saying he'd tell her later. Then he turned on me, eyes flashing.

"Shove off, Rogue," he growled. "We're not taking you to them."

"Them"? Wait a minute . . . That _had_ to mean that this "Jarred" and "Ryder" he'd mentioned were some of the commandos I had been sent after . . . And if they knew Larra, it'd be like killing friends of mine! My eyes went wide and I looked from him to Larra and back again.

"Oh, no. Oh, _no_. This is . . . bad . . . Very bad . . ."

I started shaking my head, muttering to myself. I was in for it. I couldn't kill these guys just because the Empire asked me to! Sure, it'd mean a trip through Lusankya for me, but what the heck. I was getting tired of living in a universe that despised me, having a brother that abandoned me, and being insanely lonely. From the looks of things, being dead myself was the only way out of it. As I was standing there muttering, Larra took a couple steps back, her eyebrows furrowed in sheer confusion. She really _didn't_ remember me, and that made me wonder if _she'd_ been one of those unlucky commandos "treated" at . . . that place. Sevvie gently pulled her closer to himself, as if trying to protect her from me. Where had he been for the past few years that he'd heard things to make him hate me so?

"Yeah, _beroya_," he said. "Lar's mind's gone a little kaput."

"Oy! I remember most of everything! What, you saying I know her?"

My heart sank. Not only did Lar not remember me, but Sevvie had used the word _beroya_ against me—bounty hunter. That hurt because I really didn't _feel_ like a bounty hunter . . . And it was the tone of his voice. He said it with such an air of disgust that it made me feel completely worthless. (Remember what I said about being tired of living in a galaxy that despised me? Exactly.)

"Of course you know her," Sevvie informed Larra, still glaring hard at me. "_And_ she caused Chevron to fall head-over-heels for her. You even beat the _osik_ out of her once."

Okay, that hurt. _I_ did not "cause" Chev to fall head-over-heels for me. He just did. It wasn't like I pranced around in revealing clothes practically screaming for him to chase after me. We just fell in together. And for Force's sake, Sevvie, I wish you'd tell it as it happened! I dropped back into the conversation by referring back to his use of _beroya_.

"I only am one because I have to be!" I protested. Sevvie scoffed. "And I didn't know it was going to be you all . . . Listen, I don't want to hurt you, I swear!"

Sevvie's eyes flashed as he started hefting his rifle off his back and into his arms. I took a step back; he was actually threatening to shoot me! I didn't know whether to run for my life and risk Lusankya or just stand there and let him kill me. But, I supposed, if he killed me . . . I'd be with Chev and _Jang'buir_ again . . . Talk about a dilemma.

"Sure, like you would have signed onto the Empire's bounty to hunt and kill them if you didn't want to," Sevvie snorted. "You hunters are all the same, not caring for anything but the credits."

Larra peered over his shoulder at me, and I saw her gaze lock onto my face. She was still trying to place me in that fragmented memory of hers, and I felt my throat tighten. Not only could she not even remember my _face_, but Sevvie—my friend—_ner vod_—was practically threatening to kill me. I guess he'd never truly known me; he'd never had the same opportunity as Larra had to see how I was—what's the word—scrupulous. He aimed his rifle at me, and I thrust my hands out.

"No! Sevvie, c'mon," I begged. "We used to be friends! I mean, even with the way you'd tease . . . You were never like this." I stiffened when I saw he wasn't about to back down, and I inhaled sharply. Frankly, I thought this was the end. "Okay, so if you're going to pull that trigger, go ahead, make it fast, and make it good. It's not like I have anything else to live for. Hurry it up!"

"A nervous breakdown _and_ living on my own for a few years can change a lot," Sevvie said, his mouth curling into a full-blown snarl. "You should have thought about that."

Nervous breakdown? Oh, yes. Larra had told me of that . . . That was what had gotten him drummed out. I didn't know what caused it; all I knew was that was what _had_ to have been the root cause behind his strange behavior. He tapped his rifle's trigger, causing Larra to flinch. I was watching him closely, waiting for the bolt to come hurtling out and hitting me someplace crucial. If he aimed just right, he could go straight through my armor; it wasn't as thick as his was, after all. I took one tiny step back and saw Larra start as Sevvie squeezed the trigger. I was expecting that blaster bolt, but what came out of that rifle was a _stun_ bolt. It hit me right where the armor plates intersected, and I crumpled. The world got extremely dark and fuzzy _very_ quickly, and I blinked, trying to stave off the inevitable.

"Sevvie . . . You didn't think . . . maybe . . . I _wanted_ . . . to die . . . ?"

I exhaled heavily as my eyelids slammed shut and I slipped sideways into a heap. The last thing I felt before I went completely unconscious was my head hitting the cold white floor panels.


	23. Recollecting

**Chapter Twenty-Three – Recollecting**

I woke up several hours later with an ache where the stun bolt had hit. When I cracked an eye open, I found myself in the cold sterility of a barracks, and needless to say, I was extremely groggy. I didn't like where I was, but it could've been worse. I could've been dead. I groaned something along the lines of "Where the frack am I?" before closing my eyes again. But what I didn't notice was that there was one _huge_, red-plated assassin droid actually _sitting on_ _me_ . . . and holding a _really_ big rifle. He spoke so suddenly that I jumped.

"Statement: Masters, the bounty hunting meatbag is awake! Excited Exclamation: Let the interrogations begin!"

I jumped quite violently, clutching my heart as the skin on the back of my neck began to prickle and the hairs rose on end.

"Don't _do_ that!" I screeched.

The droid just looked at me inquisitively.

"Query: Do what?"

Just then, Larra walked over and glared at the droid (whose designation, I later learned, was HK-47; he was also a couple thousand years old, if I remember right), her hands resting on her hips. Somehow, I was grateful to see her.

"HK," she sighed, "get off her and let her up; I'm not going to ask her anything if you keep sitting on her like that!"

The droid reluctantly climbed off of me, and it felt as if my bones were cracking as he did. Let me tell you something, assassin droids are _not_ to be taken lightly. They are excruciatingly heavy and _very_ bloodthirsty. I noticed that even as he crawled off, he kept that monstrous rifle close by . . . as if he had orders to shoot me if I tried anything. I pushed myself up and swung my legs over the edge of the bunk, holding my head. It throbbed from where it'd smacked the floor panels, and I exhaled heavily before daring to look up. And when I did, my eyes went wide. Why? Because the _Deltas_ were standing there! Suddenly, I realized _they_ were the ones I had been sent to kill, and my head went back into my hands as I sighed.

"Oh, this is getting worse by the second . . . I'm _so_ in for it."

Larra arched an eyebrow as she glanced over at Sevvie, who was standing, sulking, in a corner with his shoulders slouched and his arms crossed. He scowled at me, not saying a word, and I felt . . . hurt. Not like I didn't have it coming, but . . .

"All right, so where were we?" Larra began. "Oh, yes . . . Did you know anyone else in the GAR? We—well, excluding HK—were in it."

"And _I_ remember you," Sevvie grumbled.

"The point is," Larra sighed, "the rest of us _don't_, courtesy Lusankya. Now, start talking."

She stared down at me, and I noticed that she was clutching a _lightsaber_ in either hand. I started slightly; since when was she wielding lightsabers?! ARCs didn't use lightsabers . . . Something _seriously_ needed explaining. And then there was the gold ring on her left ring finger . . . I glanced across the room and saw an identical ring on Scorch's hand, and I nearly fell over. Larra had married _Scorch_?! Force, that surprised me. She was always too serious for somebody like him. My shock prevented me from answering, so she prodded me with her lightsabers' hilts. I jumped, afraid she would run me through if I didn't talk.

"Whoa, okay, easy," I said, forcing a chuckle. "I was going to cooperate without causing any trouble, anyway." I looked across the room at the Deltas, and it broke my heart to see all of them looking so . . . confused. "And the answer is yes. I knew them, too . . ."

I motioned to them, and they exchanged a couple of odd glances. My heart felt as if it would burst, and knowing what had happened to Chevron, that was _not_ a good thing. But I felt so upset that they no longer knew me. I would've blamed it on years of separation, but they had total recall. They would've recognized me. It was Lusankya. That was the demon behind all their hells. But I felt a bit better when Scorch nodded slowly.

"Guess that's why you _do_ look a bit familiar," he said. "Anybody else see it?"

Sev and Fixer nodded, but Ace . . . Oh, Ace. Whatever they'd done to him had been ten times worse than the others. He looked so pained, and I knew he had no memory of me at all. It was at that moment that I wanted to leap up and throw my arms around him in a huge hug. He deserved that much.

"Sorry," he said. "I've got nothing."

"You had the worst of it," Fixer replied. "Don't strain your neurons too hard."

Well, that _did_ sound like something the Empire would do: more deeply brainwash the squad leader so he would serve without a single question. This was far worse than the genetic tampering the Kaminoans had done . . . That brought to mind the growth acceleration, and it made me wonder why they didn't look older than they should have. Sevvie did, a bit, but all the others looked . . . well, _normal_. I made a mental note to ask Larra when she remembered or Sevvie when he was speaking to me again.

"But I remember all of you!" I said to the Deltas. "Isn't there _some_ way I can get you to remember me?"

"Most likely not," Larra sighed. "Unless there's some time when we all _would_ have known you."

Across the room, Sevvie muttered something under his breath, but he said it so fast that I could never in a million lifetimes have caught it. I sighed heavily, thinking back as far as I could. And when I say that, I mean I went all the way back to ancient history. I went back to the times when _Jang'buir_ still lived, Boba was still little more than an annoying kid brother, and Chev and I still had those secret rendezvous. But then I found something. I found _us_. The mess hall! Remember the early bits of this tale where we all had dinner together? Precisely. I snapped my fingers.

"I've got something," I announced. "Years ago, before the war, we all used to eat together in the mess hall. Larra, you weren't too happy I was there . . . not at first . . . We'd talk about explosives a lot. One time, we even swore not to fight over grenades."

"Only because someone had stolen mine," Scorch replied sullenly.

Larra's brows furrowed, and she slowly shook her index finger at me, as if memories were bubbling up from the darkest depths of her mind. (Wow, look at me, waxing poetic already.)

"Wait a sec . . . _You_ had stolen them, hadn't you? And I blew up . . . a bit." She chuckled as Sevvie sighed; I sensed exasperation from him and frankly wanted to tell him to get a grip. Larra continued. "And Chev . . . He kept staring at . . . someone . . ."

Right then, I wanted to throw a fit, kick, scream, _and_ jump up and down while shouting "_ME!_ Chev was staring at _me_!" But I didn't have that option, really. All I could do was just stand there and hope to the highest heaven that they would come around and remember. I put on a smirk and tilted my head at Larra.

"A _bit_? You practically chewed my head off over it!" I laughed, and she beamed, a bit proud of herself. "Yeah, I was the little thief. And Chev . . . He kept staring at me."

I had wanted to say that . . . but I'd wanted to throw a tantrum, kick, scream, _and_ jump up and down while saying it. Ahh, things never go as I plan or want. That's the trouble with life. It's too complicated and _way_ too unfair. I lightly rapped a fist on my chestplate to try to jar memories of Chev in their minds before I continued.

"At first, you all teased him about it, but after a while, you started to lay off. Anybody remember that?" I got a few tilted heads, as if that sounded familiar to my Delta friends, but there was nothing definite. I sighed. "Why do I get the feeling this is going to be painful?"

"It's because they've all had their dosings of chemicals that wiped their memories," Sevvie interjected suddenly. "They don't remember much; most that they _can_ remember is stuff that's happened among them."

"I remembered _you_," Larra informed him.

"That's only because Ryder mentioned that raid," Sevvie returned with a smirk.

I felt a bit cheerful; the Sevvie _I_ knew had popped back out as he grinned at the memory of that armory raid. That was the point when I realized that the Delta boys all had _real_ names. To Larra and Sevvie, Scorch was now called Ryder. It was a little unusual; it made me feel as if I'd really missed out on a lot. It gave me a real feeling of loneliness and . . . homesickness. But I pushed it from my mind as Sevvie turned to me and kept going.

"They've still got some little blank spots, especially if they're apart in those memories."

I nodded slowly; so _that_ was the key, huh? Think up things where they were together and I was there as well. We'd already determined that they had vague memories of the mess hall, so I decided to keep going with that. I started with the first conversation that came to mind. I patted the knife in my hip sheath, glancing at Sev.

"Sev, remember this?" I asked. "You commented on it and asked if I had guns, too."

"Mm, knife looks familiar," he admitted. "Didn't you say something about your guns being locked up?"

I heaved a sigh of relief and nodded, a grin creeping across my face.

"Yes, I did," I replied. "Okay, at least you remember that. But I doubt you can put my face anywhere . . ."

Larra shook her head sadly while Sevvie sighed and rolled his eyes. I felt like absolutely smacking him; he needed to be patient with them! It wasn't like they were going to remember in a heartbeat. I glanced over at the assassin droid; he seemed to be growing tenser and losing his excitement as the conversation kept onward. When I looked at Sevvie again, I saw another scowl on his face as he kept his gaze glued to me. I shot him a rather nasty glare.

"You shut up," I snapped, even though he hadn't said anything—yet. "I'm just as confused as they because I wasn't there for every second of their lives! And I'm hurt because my friends can't remember me—not that it's their fault, but it still hurts. _And_ I'm insulted because you hate me, Sevvie. You think I _like_ my job?!"

"Well, I can't say that I've fared _better_ since before Geo!" he barked, clenching his fists and shaking one at me. "There're times that I've wondered if I shouldn't have let them _kill_ me when I broke up over some stupid bit of fracking—"

My eyes widened somewhat as he broke off abruptly and turned away, breathing hard. His face had gone completely read, and I was certain mine was too. But he'd gotten me curious, and I suddenly wanted to know what had caused his meltdown. I wanted to know what had killed the Sevvie I knew and loved and replaced him with this . . . angst machine. I sensed the reason was a touchy subject, so while I probably should have let it slide, I kept going. I was hyped up and angry and needed _something_ to lash out at—even if it was a very good friend.

"Neither have I, _haar'chak_!" I hissed. "Maybe you ought to stop and think that maybe _I_ would've given anything to have died, too! I thought I'd lost you all! I showed up at Geo to find Chev dead and no survivors, and I didn't know anything for years!" I broke off and sighed heavily. "But we're not getting anywhere by arguing. Let's just get back to civilized discussion."

"Please," Ace agreed. "This is starting to make me tense."

I looked over at him and saw that his body was poised for action, as if ready to leap to motion should a fist fight break out between Sevvie and me. His fists were clenched, and his jaw was set. It sent a shiver down my spine; even in civvies, the commando leader I'd known was still in there. I gave him a comforting smile.

"Arguments always did," I told him. "You were the peacekeeper." 

There was silence for a few moments as he seemed to be mulling over this. Larra sighed and rolled her shoulders back; it'd been apparently making her tense, too.

"Right, now that we've got _that_ off our chests . . ." She glared over at Sevvie, who was sulking in his corner. I felt as if I should apologize, but she didn't give me a chance as she continued my little "interrogation." "How else did you know us? Maybe . . . maybe on a more personal level than just at the table."

"Well . . . Lar, you and I first met when I ran into you in the hallways. You were late for a melee lesson and so you were pretty ticked when I came crashing into you. I was too proud, so we had a battle of the words before I ripped off your helmet and found you were a girl. So you hauled me off to your barracks and let me interrogate you until I twirked you off further, and after that, we had one heck of a fight. You whupped my butt pretty damn good."

Nearby, Fixer piped up.

"Ohh . . . wasn't that the thing everybody was talking about for a month?"

"Mm-hmm!" I nodded. "We had the army split right up the middle on which of us could kick the most butt!" I chuckled for a moment, thinking back as I gingerly rubbed the scar on my lip and chin. "Yeah, Lar, Sev said you could beat me any day, and Chevron said _I_ could beat _you_ . . . as did you, Ace."

I looked up at him and found that he was looking pretty startled . . . almost as if something had gone off in the back of his mind. Everyone else was watching him curiously, as if waiting to see what great revelation would come spilling out of his memory bank. Beside me on the bunk, Larra chuckled faintly.

"Wait a sec . . ." Her eyes began to glitter. "I _do_ remember that fight. Heh, you went flying all over the place, last I remember."

That I did. I nodded and blushed a bit sheepishly as she furrowed her brows and tapped her chin with her index finger.

"Hm . . . but that name . . . Jarred, you don't remember? Everyone not in Delta called you 'Ace'; even me and Sevvie and Chev, right?"

"Yep," Sevvie answered, still sounding a bit sullen, "but now we know better."

"That explains why it's kind of familiar," Ace admitted, "but not really."

"Yes," I said. "We called you that because you were such a great leader in the making. But now you've got this other name . . . Should I call you by it?"

"Lar just calls him Jarred," Scorch informed me. "The rest of us call him Boss."

"I see." _Note to self: Ace is now _Boss "I'm guessing he got the worst of the chem treatment . . . Sevvie, if you're on speaking terms with me, help me find something to jog his memory, please?"

Sevvie lifted and dropped one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, and Larra sighed.

"He's obviously still not in a talking mood. I'm the one that sort of remembers the most; I can help as best I can." She tossed a glance at the assassin droid, who was still standing there with his rifle relatively close to my skull. "HK, you _can_ stand down, you know."

"Complaint: But I am waiting for the dismemberment to start!"

"There isn't going to _be_ any. Stand down."

At Larra's command, the droid—albeit _very_ reluctantly—stood down and returned his rifle to a more relaxed position at his side. I relaxed even though I hadn't realized I'd been tense in the first place. Nevertheless, I still eyed the droid a bit suspiciously; I did _not_ trust my well-being around the likes of him. When he didn't make a move to blast my brains out, I looked back to the Deltas—_Boss_ especially—and sighed.

"I wish there were something . . . anything . . . I could say . . . But I don't know enough to help! Arrg, I just feel so useless . . ." I looked up at them with apologetic eyes. Force, how I wanted to help them. They deserved to get their memories back; there _had_ to be some loophole in Lusankya's procedures that would allow them to recover their memories! "Forgive me, because I think I'm failing you."

"Hey, don't feel too bad," Scorch soothed before forcing a chuckle. "We can't remember any of it, either."

"Yeah, and unless you happen to be Force-sensitive or in a bond with one and can bring all these memories back, I guess they'll stay forgotten," Larra admitted.

That sounded painful for her to admit, for the way she'd been studying me made me feel she was genuinely trying to place me in her mind. She sighed and gave me a nod.

"Nuh uh, not while I'm alive and breathing," I declared. "You all _will_ remember, and I won't let the Empire take you."

"The Empire . . . take us?" Poor Fixer seemed so confused by that.

Yeah, I'd just let the cat out of the bag. I sighed heavily and nodded, getting myself ready to be pounced upon by the over-zealous Sevvie.

"Y—yes. They put a bounty on you after you escaped Lusankya . . . They sent me to hunt you . . . me and probably my brother. You're lucky I found you first . . . otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Why?" Boss asked. "Your brother would've killed us?"

"I'm afraid so. He's a far more deadly hunter than Jango ever was. If he'd found you before I did . . ." I shuddered at the thought. "Listen, I'm _trying_ to help you. You think I want to lose my friends?!"

Across the room, Sevvie growled at me, his eyes narrowing. I glanced cautiously at him and found that he was still quite angry with me for reasons I have yet to uncover.

"And how can we know that you're not sending him a homing signal or some such, lighting the way?"

That hurt. I would _never _betray my friends to Boba. Even for a kid, he was merciless. He would kill them and in the slowest way possible. I winced as if Sevvie had dealt me an actual physical blow as Larra crossed the room to him.

"She's not lying," she said. "I'd be able to feel it, if you've forgotten exactly _why_ I carry these!"

She brandished her lightsaber hilts up under Sevvie's nose, and I felt my jaw go slack. The first words that popped into my head were literally "Sweet Force, Larra's a _Jedi_?!" Let me tell you something, I had _not_ seen that one coming. _Another note to self: Ask her about it later._

"I wouldn't lie!" I protested. "You guys have _got_ to believe me or else all this is for nothing!"

"Well, _I_ believe you," Scorch said. "You're just too sincere to be trying to lure us into a trap."

"Thank you, Scorch," I replied. "I appreciate the support." I fell silent for a few minutes, thinking. "Now, about this missing memory business . . . What could I do jog your memories . . ."

It occurred to me then that they'd only ever knew me _before_ Geonosis. They'd only known me _before_ Chev died . . . before I took his chestplate as my own. And I wondered if maybe—just _maybe_—they'd remember my original chestplate. I had it stashed away in my gear when I'd stuffed it in my quarters upon arrival at Kamino. Even then, I could see it just waiting for me to grab it and snap it in with the rest of my armor.

"What if I went and got my original chestplate, huh?" I said. "Like the one I wore when you knew me? Think that'd help?"

"It might," Boss shrugged. "But I don't know."

"It's worth a shot!" I cried, leaping up and making a mad dash for the door.

I was almost to the door when Sevvie's hand shot out and clamped around my arm. I wheeled around to find him glaring hard at me. His anger had become mistrust, and in the back of my mind, I heard the tone he'd used when calling me a _beroya_. I lifted an eyebrow, but I didn't try to pull my arm out of his grip. I just stood there, watching him, trying to figure out what'd happened to him.

"Not without someone with a comlink to watch you," he stated. "Since the Imps are also looking for me . . . HK, go with her. If she sends any transmissions, stun her and bring her back."

"Sevvie, you're going too far!" Larra cried. "She hasn't lied any of the times she could have, and, if you could look past the end of your nose for two seconds, you'd know that she _is_ trying to help! If you don't trust her, then _go_! I can com you or HK can come running if she decides to kill us, all right?! Good Force . . ."

Sevvie's eyes flashed, but he complied and released my arm as he stood down. _That droid_ looked to Larra, seeming as thrilled as a droid could. It was obvious he was waiting for Larra to confirm Sevvie's orders.

"_NO_, HK, you're _not_ going to follow her. Rogue, we'll wait for you."

I nodded and slipped out the door, feeling somewhat grateful that I had someone who believed me still . . . and she didn't even fully remember me. But I felt hot tears sting my eyes as I strode down the hallways back to my quarters. Sevvie had never been that . . . vicious. It broke my heart to see what he had become: a mistrusting, suspicious man who wouldn't stand back and listen for a moment. I blinked rapidly, trying to hold the tears in, but they came anyway. I wrenched off my gauntlet and rubbed those tears from my eyes with my fist as I arrived back at my quarters' door. It only took me a couple minutes to get in there, splash some cold water on my face in the 'fresher, and make the chestplate switch. I gave myself a couple more minutes to regain my composure before even daring to head back to the group. Standing there and looking at myself in the mirror, I came to the sudden conclusion that I'd changed. My eyes weren't as bright as they'd been at one time, and I looked . . . tired, maybe even a little old. Quickly, I did a bit of calculation and found with surprise that I really was only about twenty-five. As I walked back toward where the others were, I mulled my age over in my head. If everything had worked out as I'd desired, Chevron and I could be living happily in a cozy house on Naboo, and I could probably be pregnant with our third child. _And_ my brother could be there with us, too . . . And he wouldn't be a killer. I nearly let more tears slip out, but I swallowed the lump in my throat as I took a deep breath and stepped back through the door to the barracks. As soon as I entered, Scorch's eyes went wide.

"_Hey!_" he cried. "That's—"

"Yeah . . ." Fixer agreed. "The fem Fett!"

"Oh, _now_ we're getting somewhere!" I sighed with relief. "Lar, this is like when you cracked. I had to ditch the plate so you'd snap out of it."

Larra frowned at me, but she nodded anyway.

"Not one of my favorite memories, but, yes, I remember."

"_YOU_ cracked?" Sevvie asked, almost in disbelief. "Why didn't you get kicked out like I did?"

"And have the only unaltered clone of Jango Fett running around and free to do what she wants?" Larra scoffed. "Sure, like they would have, especially if they'd found out I was Force-sensitive before I did."

_Only _other_ unaltered clone,_ I thought bitterly.

I'd thought learning she was Force-sensitive (whatever the frack that meant) would answer a bunch of questions for me, but it didn't. In fact, it only made _more_ questions. For one thing, how did a clone of an un-Force-sensitive bounty hunter become Force-sensitive? (I really have to stop using that phrase.) I could understand how she was made a girl, but . . . I shook it off, continuing the little conversation.

"Yes. It was messy. I didn't like it either, but I had to snap her out of it. I ended up getting in one heck of a fist fight with her, and I actually had to hurt her to get her mind out of its whacko state." I looked around the room. "Okay, so the chestplate jogged a few memories. Anything else?"

"Yeah," Scorch said. "You stole my flash-bangs but gave them back. _And_ you and Chevron turned Lar loose on me when I teased you two about falling in together."

"You nearly wet your armor," I laughed.

Sev grinned darkly and chuckled equally so.

"Yeah . . . that would've been funny to see."

"I remember that!" Larra laughed. Ryder was annoying you two to no end . . ."

Across the way, even Sevvie put in his own little memory of the event.

"I remember you talking about how you got the fact I wasn't to talk about it into my head . . ."

Larra smirked wickedly at him, and I began to wonder just what she'd done to get that through his skull.

"Oh, yeah," I snickered. "And I remember that you, Boss, had to literally drag Sev away so he wouldn't bother Chev and me. He wandered up and asked 'Any kissin' yet?' Then you yanked him off and hauled him away."

I smiled reminiscently but started when Boss actually chuckled.

"Yeah . . . The scoundrel."

Glances were exchanged among us as Scorch reached out to take Boss's shoulder. Could it really be that he remembered something so off-the-ball that thinking about it was only a random occurrence?

"You . . . remember?" he asked.

"Why not?" Boss replied. "Anybody's gonna remember an under-wraps romance."

I stared, and Larra leaped across the room, nearly taking him down as she threw her arms around his broad shoulders.

"Jarred, that's the first time you've remembered anything _waaay_ before the rest of us!" she cried happily, beaming.

I felt tears come to my eyes again, and it wasn't just because he'd remembered something. It was because they'd all become such a close-knit little family. I'd never had that opportunity . . . not even with _Jang'buir_ and Boba. I always feared it was because I was not a "true" Mandalorian, meaning my blood was mixed. But I also felt tears because thinking back on those memories made me miss the old days, when it felt as if nothing was ever going to go wrong. I offered Boss a smile.

"I'm glad you remember," I said. "It means you're not permanently damaged like I was afraid you would be. More often than not, people who come away from Lusankya _never_ remember. Their brains are just too badly damaged."

I wandered over and squeezed his shoulder, noticing that he actually grinned at me. Beside us, Scorch sighed.

"Yeah, and it's been really hard to get him to remember. And by '_really_ hard' I mean 'nearly impossible.' Poor guy . . ."

"Hey, no worries," I encouraged. "We'll get this group back to the way it used to be, okay?"

There were enthusiastic nods from the others, and I exhaled deeply, feeling for the first time as if we were actually getting somewhere. I was about to pose more questions in hopes of piecing together more fragmented memories, but there suddenly came a quiet knock at the door. Sevvie answered it and opened it to reveal Taun We. She was looking more aged than usual, but her face had something of an agitated appearance to it. I knew right away that something was very, _very_ wrong.

"I am sorry to interrupt," she said, "but Boba has come in for a landing . . ."

There was almost a collective gasp as Larra took a step forward, her eyes wide. I closed my eyes as I suddenly felt sick in the pit of my stomach. I could just feel Sevvie's hatred beaming down on me as Larra took a breath and spat out the one phrase that was rampaging through all our minds.

"_What?!"_


	24. My Brother the Traitor

**Chapter Twenty-four – My Brother the Traitor**

Almost as soon as the news came, Sevvie descended on me like a wild animal on a scrap of meat. His fist was shaking near my face, and his eyes were flashing. I could just see the accusation in his eyes as he glared harder at me than he had before, and my chest tightened. I just stood there, my faith in my brethren shattered and my personal pride severely wounded. I just wanted him to see the truth that I had _not_ called my brother!

"I told you!" he shouted at the others. "But does _ANYONE_ listen to me, noooo . . ."

He seemed as if he was going to spit in my face, so I lifted a hand, palm out, to protect myself. But he seemed to think better of it as Larra barked the order for everyone to armor up, since there was no way to know what Boba would be planning. I felt a distinct sense of dread; it sat heavily upon my shoulders. I watched as the group threw on their armor, each familiar coloration bringing back memories. Yet even the paint on Larra's armor was beginning to chip and fade, and I sighed heavily. As they tugged on their armor, Taun We strode slowly out without saying another word. Part of me wanted to chase her down and thank her for being so kind to me even after I'd been gone for so long; another part wanted to thank her for giving us all a heads-up so my traitorous brother wouldn't have caught us unaware. But there wasn't time for that. I had only enough time to make sure all my knives were in their proper places and my blaster was in its holster before Sevvie turned on me again, screeching that I'd betrayed them all and that _someone_ should've gone with me when I made the chestplate switch. My eyes widened as he kept spewing those heated accusations at me, and again I felt hot tears come to my eyes.

"No . . . no . . . Sevvie, I didn't call him!" I cried. "I didn't even have to go to my ship to get my chestplate, okay?! I just went to the old quarters!"

He ignored me, rolling his eyes. I wanted to spend more time declaring my innocence, but I realized we didn't have time. Boba was coming for us, that fifteen-year-old traitor. Perhaps he thought I hadn't found them yet and that he was going to capitalize on my unwillingness to hunt to kill. As quickly as I could, I began ushering Larra and the others toward the door; but I wonder if _herding_ would be a better word choice.

"Quick, you've got to get out of here!" I cried. "I'll stall him. Just get to my ship and _GO_! He'll be here any minute!"

Larra helped me wave the others out, forcibly shoving Sevvie out ahead of herself. She turned to me and clasped my hands, eyes searching mine for a minute. At that moment, I realized how she was so much taller than I. She had to have been at least six inches taller than I was; I was five-foot-three and a bit. And I felt . . . dwarfed. But I nodded at her as she gripped my hand.

"Rogue, thanks for all your help," she said. "Sevvie may not trust you, but some part of me says we've had a heart-to-heart session once; _I_ can trust you. But I am _not_ risking you going over into Imp hands, a' right? I'll cover _you_."

I appreciated her offer, but I wasn't about to let her risk everything for me. She had a husband and brothers now; I had no one. Besides, Boba was _my_ responsibility. If something I'd done had caused him to turn out the way he had, it was my fault, and I needed to own up to it. He was only fifteen (maybe sixteen by then) and I was ten years older. It wasn't like I was bragging on my skills; I was just accepting responsibility. I returned Larra's tight grip and shook my head.

"No, just _go_!" I pleaded. "I'll make it out okay. Besides, it's not really like my own brother would—"

I broke off abruptly as I glanced out into the hall and saw Boba coming, fully-armored and packing a rather large rifle. I shuddered as I realized he had taken _Jang'buir_'s helmet and repainted it, completely covering the shining blue and silver with something closer to green. It matched his armor, which I'd helped him put together and which he'd based so closely on Jango's that I could've sworn it _was_ Jango's. But I knew it couldn't be; even my brother (Augh, I hate that word) was _not_ a grave robber. I felt my blood run cold as I saw him coming; I never thought I'd see the day when I'd fear my own _brother_. I wondered if it was possible to declare someone no longer a brother in the same way that _dar'buir_ worked as I shoved Larra from the barracks and down the hall. I gave her a head start before glancing over my shoulder and chasing after her. I paused to check Boba's location and found he was only a few feet away from me.

"Look what I've found: the escaped prisoners and the _aruetii_ who's helping them," he said with something of a growl. "Lord Vader thought you might turn."

_Lord_ Vader? Had he truly sworn allegiance to the Empire? I hoped not. I shot a glare at him, realizing fully I was helmetless and therefore unprotected if he decided I was better off dead and that a head shot would be a magnificent way to dispose of me.

"Listen, _Bo'ika_," I said, the old pet name just tumbling out, "I don't know what Vader's paying you for this, but you're turning into a murderer!"

"Because you never make any money the way you hunt—the way you tried to teach me."

Frack. I knew that'd come back to haunt me someday. I stiffened, feeling myself grow protective over Larra and the others—my only remaining _true_ family.

"You get out of here," I snarled. "I'm not letting you lay a hand on them!" I wheeled around to Larra, who had lingered beside me. "Take the others and _leave_! Haul your _shebse_ out of here before I make you!"

Larra gave me a single nod before firing a single icy glare at Boba.

"And I thought you had an ounce of caring when you called me by my name."

She said nothing more as she darted off down the hall, scattering mines behind herself in case I wasn't able to hold him off. Well, let's face it. I only intended to hold him for a few minutes, to give them a head start. Then I was getting out of there. No way was he taking me back, turning me in to the Empire! I would _not_ go through Lusankya just because I'd done what was right! As I stared at him, I flicked my wrist and my knife dropped into my grip.

"I'm not letting you get away with this," I declared. "You won't kill them just for the credits."

Hurray for Rogue Fett, champion of clone's rights! Note sarcasm. Boba tilted his helmeted head as if he was arching an eyebrow at me beneath it.

"Who said anything about _them_?" he said. "_You_ were sent to kill them; _I_ was sent to make sure you did."

"What?!"

"Mm-hmm," he nodded. "You may have been hunting them, but I was hunting _you_."

Bombshell, bombshell, _bombshell_.

And here I was thinking he'd been assigned to the same job, but noooo. He'd been assigned to hunt _me_. My own brother was hunting me because Vader had handed him a chunk of credits, pointed to me, and said "Fetch, boy!"

_No,_ I kept reminding myself. _He's not your brother, not any longer._

"You've turned into a more bloodthirsty killer than _Jang'buir_ ever was!" I screeched, anger filling me. "He never would have turned on his own family like you are, you _chakaar_! You make me regret the day I ever agreed to train you!" My fist clenched around my knife as I stared long and hard at his helmet's faceless visor. "I don't want to have to hurt you, Boba. Stand down."

He adjusted his grip on the rifle he was packing and clicked his tongue at me to show his disapproval. I kept reminding myself that he was just a kid; he couldn't possibly shoot straight. But then again . . . if _Vader_ had hired him for the job . . . I shuddered to think of what else he'd done to earn that kind of attention.

"See, the thing about bounty hunting is we have _no_ family," he informed me. Well, so much for "_Aliit ori'shya tal'din_." "Besides, I know _you_ wouldn't kill _me_. You think I wasn't paying attention when I'd go on jobs with you? You never slit anybody's throat with that knife. You only shot them if they shot at you first. But I know you wouldn't shoot me . . . your own _brother_."

I should've run. I shouldn't have underestimated him like I did. I should have turned tail and _run_ for my life. They say _Mando'ade_ never stand down from a challenge. Yeah, well, do we need to return to the beginning of this story? I'm only _half _Mando! That gives me every right in the galaxy to run if I feel like it. And I should've felt like it. For no sooner had the word _brother_ left his mouth than he hefted that rifle and squeezed the trigger. There was this blinding burst of pain in my right side as I heard the thin armor plating shatter and felt my flesh break wide open. As I sank to one knee, hand pressed tightly against the open, bleeding hole in my side, I realized dimly that _he'd shot me_. My pulse pounded in my ears as the thoughts that ran through my mind went something like this: "Oh Force, oh Force, he shot me. I'm shot, oh Force. Never been _shot_ before . . . Oh Fooooooooorce . . ." I glared up at him, _hard_. Force, I hated that little rodent. I cursed the day he was born. Sincerest apologies, _Jang'buir_, but if you knew this would happen, you probably wouldn't have had him cloned from you!

"Damn you . . ." I mumbled. "Damn you to the lowest hell, because you deserve it. Betraying your own family. You scum of the galaxy."

I toppled sideways, still clutching my side. Hello, floor. Nice to meet you again. Frankly, it felt good to be lying down. That was all I wanted to do because I felt so terrible. Just wanted to lie down, curl up, and die if at all possible. Death would be better than going through Lusankya and losing everything I was to the Empire's perverted mind-wiping program. As I lay there, I heard a sudden loud yell from behind me, and I just barely turned my head to see Larra barreling down the hall, twin lightsabers active and growling menacingly. Even without looking at her, I could tell her dark brown eyes were flashing with that warrior's fire she'd talked about so long ago. I sighed in a bit of relief as she skidded to a halt in front of me, holding her lightsabers crossed in front of her.

"Shame," she snarled. "You shoot your sister because she's doing the right thing. If you can shoot your own blood, then go ahead. I DARE you."

Attagirl, Lar. You tell that punk. I looked up at her from the ball I'd curled into, coughing slightly. Boba's blaster bolt must've cut me right clear to the lung . . . Ugh. And if it wasn't my lung, then it was pretty darn close to it. I glanced down to see the blood seeping through my clenched fingers before blinking up at Larra.

"I told you to get out of here . . . He's only after me. I'd rather me die than you all."

"Aww, that's sweet," Boba mocked. "Nauseating, but still sweet. But you mean _nothing_ to me, Larra. I didn't come hunting for you."

"Well, then, maybe you oughtta rethink your priorities," Larra returned hotly. "I bet Vader's price on _me_ is a bit more than the one on Rogue. So . . . just try to take on the only semi-clone who's got the Force!"

She brandished her lightsabers and smiled threateningly, and I half-expected Boba to take the bait. But he didn't; he just shook his head and scoffed.

"And get myself killed? I'll pass."

"You . . . _hut'uun_ . . ." I coughed, knowing what I was saying. I was using the worst insult in Mando'a against him. To be called a _hut'uun_ was to have your pride and personal honor severely insulted. But I doubted Boba even _had_ honor.

Even from beneath his helmet, he glared at me, and he adjusted his rifle before squeezing the trigger again. Another agonizing flash of pain as the second bolt hit awfully close to where the first one was. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling quite unable to take this abuse any longer, as I twisted and curled up on my other side, inhaling sharply through clenched teeth.

"Lar . . ." I moaned. "Do me a favor . . . Just don't kill him . . ."

I gave a gasp, and, startled, Larra turned and knelt beside me, her hands reaching for my wound. It seemed like she was going to try a Jedi trick to heal it, but I shook my head and clamped my hands around my side.

"You're leaving yourself open . . . !" I cried.

And I was right. Boba came leaping at her, aiming his boots at her as he attempted to kick her away from me. He _did_ knock her away, and he thought he had the upper hand, so he opened fire at her.

"And here I'd have thought you had been trained to be smarter than that!" he taunted.

Larra spared him a sideways glance before stretching out her hand and rolling the Force into something of a ball that careened into him and sent him skittering backwards as she lifted her lightsabers to block the continued stream of blasterfire.

"And now you know why Jedi can afford to _do_ that!" she laughed.

I thought she had him. I honestly thought she'd beaten him simply by sheer force of will. I thought—_hoped_—that she'd scoop me up and haul me out of there, to my ship, to a place where I could keep lying down. I wanted to sleep . . . but I knew that if I did, I'd be gone. The urge to sleep wasn't exactly a good thing in this case. It meant I was drawing near to that point of throwing in the towel and saying "Goodbye, galaxy." And yes, I mean for good. But bacta didn't seem like such a bad idea, either . . . But as I was saying, I thought Larra had him. But I was wrong. He activated the jetpack strapped to his back and shot upwards toward the ceiling, peering down the scope of his rifle at us.

"You're not getting her away from me," he said. "I'm taking her back."

Back. Back where? Back to Vader in chains? Or would we skip that step and fast-forward right to a cold, dark cell in the belly of Lusankya? What fun. Note my usual sarcasm. I looked up at Larra and sighed when I saw that there were _two_ of her. My vision was already crossing. If I wasn't about to die, then I was sure as heck about to pass out.

"Lar . . . you'd better let him . . . I'll get away somehow. Just go with the others, okay? _Please!_"

Her eyes flashed a warning at both Boba and me, and she fiercely shook her head.

"I swore, along with the others, to _never_ leave anyone behind again! I most certainly won't leave you, either!"

_But you barely know me anymore . . ._

I reached up with a bloody hand and grabbed her shoulder, giving it something of a firm shake and leaving a red handprint on the blue and black armor plates. I gazed long and hard at her, as if saying goodbye without having to open my mouth. I knew I'd probably never see her again. And if I did, I'd be so thoroughly brainwashed that I wouldn't recognize her. That was to be my fate; I was certain of it.

"This time, you've _got_ to," I told her. "If you don't get away, he'll take us all back. We'll all be brainwashed. And if you don't go now, then . . . then who's gonna come and rescue me?"

I forced a laugh before grimacing at the pain in my side. Most folks think that blaster wounds don't bleed, but they do. And badly. Above us, Boba smirked.

"Oh, my sister's gotten smart, except she won't be rescued. Vader is tired of her not killing his bounties for him, so he wants her . . . reconditioned."

_And you're going to let him. _Aruetii

He flipped his rifle to stun mode and aimed at Larra, who gave a start. It was as if she knew that she'd have a hard time blocking a stun bolt with those lightsabers of hers, and I heard her snarl to herself. Then, very slowly, reluctantly, she lowered her 'sabers and stood back. She gazed down at me, and I looked up at her, feeling almost grateful that she was letting this happen. I was . . . tired of living, anyway. Had nothing really to look forward to since Chev had gone. And maybe that was a little selfish, but since my brother had betrayed me, I _really_ had nothing left. Well, I had Larra, and I had the Deltas, but . . . I was tired. Larra looked at me long and hard, her eyes dark.

"I _will_ come and get you, Rogue . . . _ner vod_." She seemed as if she was choking up as she reached down and gripped my hand before shooting a menacing "death ray" glare at Boba. "And _you_ are going to get hell from me when I find you!"

"I knew you'd see reason," he chuckled, returning to ground. By then, I barely heard them. Their voices were faraway, like an echo over many miles. "Now run along."

Despite being so much younger than I, he was still bigger. He was nearly six feet tall and weighed a good deal more than I did; a lot of it was muscle, I was certain, for he scooped me up and slung me over his shoulder too easily. I forced my eyes open and saw Larra still standing there, watching him take me. And for a moment, I was afraid. I was afraid of what would happen. I know this is a cliché, but . . . I didn't _really_ want to die. I wanted to _live_. And I wanted to live with her and all the others. I gave a low cry of despair as I watched her turn and dart down the hall, and for what was not the first time in my life but sure felt like it, I was abandoned again. I knew I'd asked her to go, but . . . I still felt abandoned.

And I had secretly longed to see the _Slave I_ again, but not under those circumstances. As Boba tossed me rather unceremoniously in the cargo hold, one thought crossed my mind before I passed out. It was what I had told Larra about that hold so long ago: _If you're here any other time, you're probably a bounty we're hauling back._ As everything went dark, I realized with a stab of anguish that for the first time in my life, I was not the hunter but the _hunted_.


	25. Larra's Plan

**Chapter Twenty-five – Larra's Plan**

Larra kept running down the hallway, away from the huge patch of red on the otherwise spotless white tiles that signified where the battle had taken place. She balled her fists angrily as she muttered to herself, snapping off her lightsabers and returning them to their places on her belt.

_I can't believe I let that _chakaar_ take her!_ she thought with frustration.

Something stirred within her as she passed by the old Fett quarters on her way to Rogue's ship and her family. The door was open slightly; even from the hall, she could see Rogue's pack lying on one of the bunks. Chevron's chestplate was placed neatly across the pillow in something of a tribute to the fallen ARC, and almost without thinking, she entered the quarters. It took her only a moment to grab the pack and the chestplate; she knew that when they rescued Rogue, she'd want to have her belongings back.

_When_ they rescued her. She had to keep saying that because she wouldn't let it _not_ happen. They _had_ to save Rogue. She'd done so much for them, helped them all so. She'd helped them escape at the sacrifice of herself.

Larra darted back out of the apartment, the pack across her shoulder and the chestplate hugged tightly to her chest. Even in full armor, her footfall was gentle as she loped through the hallways toward the wet landing pad outside on which a battered old freighter was sitting. That had to be Rogue's ship; there were the others, waiting for her. She noticed that as soon as the others saw her coming, they all went on full alert. Scorch raced to her, leading her toward the ship.

"Where is she?" he asked anxiously. "Is she okay? Is she coming?"

"She's getting shipped to Vader," Larra replied morosely. "_Haar'chak_, why did I decide to back down?! I swore never to! Damn it . . ."

A collective gasp went up from her brothers—except Sevvie. He was still in that sullen mood of anger and distrust. She shot a glance at him, making a note to knock some sense into him later. Could he not see the importance behind what Rogue had done?! Or was he too blinded by his arrogance? Scorch gripped her arm.

"V—Vader . . . ? Oh, no . . ."

He was afraid. She didn't blame him. They all had less-than-pleasant memories of Vader and his Empire. Nearby, Sev exhaled heavily.

"They're sending her to . . . that place . . ." he said, struggling over the phrase. "Gonna make her into a programmed killer."

"I know," Larra sighed, "but we can't go back. Otherwise, we'll get shipped back, too, and then we might as well lose ourselves all over again . . ."

"But she was taken trying to save us," Boss replied firmly. "We have to do something or else."

"I'm for blasting a hole through Fett's skull," Sev declared, hefting his precious sniper rifle.

"I say good riddance," Sevvie grumbled.

Larra wheeled around and smacked him across the face, eyes flashing. He took a step back as if in shock as she snapped at him.

"I DON'T FRACKING CARE ABOUT WHY YOU'VE GOT A GRUDGE AGAINST HER, BUT SHE _WAS_ TRYING TO HELP, SO WE _ARE_ GOING TO TRY AND FIND HER AND RESCUE HER!"

It would be close to impossible to change her mind; she was adamant. And once she had her mind set on doing something, she'd see it through. That was her nature. She disliked leaving her family behind; she had demonstrated that thoroughly all those years ago when Sev had been captured. And she'd made good on her promises and brought him home. Beside her, Scorch nodded.

"Yeah, I'm with Lar on this one. We've gotta help if we can."

"But they'll be looking for us . . ." Boss sighed, "and we don't know anyone who could help . . ."

"Even if we did, we wouldn't remember," Fixer added.

"Either that or they wouldn't be willing to help," Larra said gloomily. But suddenly, something went off in her mind. She saw four familiar faces: alike, but not. Four sets of matte black armor . . . She gasped. "WAIT ONE MINUTE! Duh, why didn't I remember them before?!"

The others looked at her a bit strangely as she rapped her forehead with her gauntleted knuckles before shaking her head.

"I am _such_ a _di'kut_!" she exclaimed, darting into the ship.

"Them, who?" Scorch questioned, following her.

She didn't answer. She just hurried to the cockpit to get the little freighter prepared for takeoff. Though the others bombarded her with questions, she kept to her task, easing the borrowed vessel away from Kamino's soggy surface, hopefully for good. She knew there were only four people in the galaxy whom she could trust now, and hopefully, they were someplace easily located. She hurriedly typed hyperspace routes into the navicomputer, aiming for the last known location of the Rebels. She _had_ to find those four. A lot depended on finding them and enlisting their help, if not everything.

Once they were safely in hyperspace, she turned in the pilot's chair. Scorch looked at her curiously and asked again who they were after. She just smiled and uttered one word: "Omega."


	26. Journaling

**Chapter Twenty-six – Journaling**

_[Datapad of Rogue Fett. Entry begins._

_I've been sort of slipping in and out of consciousness since Boba hauled me off Kamino. I think the longest I've been awake is . . . maybe five minutes. Well, if you can't tell, I'm awake now. I'm doing a little better; thanks for asking. Turns out I'd had a single solitary syringe of bacta in my utility belt, which I so cleverly jabbed into my side. I guess I've been sitting in this stupid cargo hold for . . . I dunno . . . more than a few hours. However long it's been, it's been long enough for us to get close to Coruscant. _

_Quite frankly, I'm scared of what may happen to me. I think I'd prefer it if Vader just shot me and got it over with. But it's not like I'm an unskilled hunter . . . I'm just scrupulous, and Vader absolutely cannot stand that. Well, I'm sorry, _sir_, but not all of us are axe murders like you and your friend Emperor Wrinkle-Butt. I guess I'm just afraid to die. What if I die, expecting to get to the other side and see _Jang'buir_ and Chev waiting for me, but I get there and I'm all alone? I guess I've been alone almost all my life; why not in death too, huh? But maybe the past few years have just made me a pessimist. But I _am_ afraid. I don't mind admitting that because it's true. I've heard what they do to people at Lusankya, and I really don't want to have it happen to me. But I know that's what _will_ happen, more than likely, so I guess I just need to suck it up and accept what's coming to me. Maybe I'd better spend these last few hours savoring all my memories before they're stripped from me and I'm turned into something I'm not. _

_You know, I hate this cargo hold. Sitting here, trapped . . . It makes me really despise this ship when I used to love it. It was my father's; no wonder I liked it. But now . . . now it makes me feel like an animal being led to the slaughter, which I'm absolutely certain is a fitting analogy. Ow . . . There goes my side again. Still hurts. All of me hurts . . . especially my heart. That hurts because I've been betrayed by my own brother. You're probably thinking, "But he's the rodent! He's just your _adopted_ brother! You two don't even come from the same father!" Yeah, well . . . _Aliit ori'shya tal'din._ Or I thought it did. I thought it did right up until this _kid_ came and shot me right through the ribs. All right, all right, I'll lay off the angsting. But can I help it? My life is literally falling apart right before my eyes, and I can't do one _shabla_ thing about it._

_Just felt the ship shudder. I think we're coming into Coruscant's atmosphere. My stomach just went tight, like somebody reached in and tied it in a knot. Part of me wonders if I shouldn't exaggerate my injury and "play dead" of a sort . . . maybe play unconscious in this case. Maybe if they think I'm critically wounded, they won't hurt me. Maybe they won't send me to Lusankya just yet. Maybe I can find _some_ way to escape. But I'd like to know just what awaits me here on Triple Zero. Oh, listen to me. All these years and I'm still using the old military codes. That in itself makes me long to see my Chev again. But you know there's only one way to do that . . . That's the other option. The first is to enter Lusankya as Rogue Fett and leave as Vader's pet kath hound who doesn't know who or what she is and was. I hate to use the old cliché, but that one really _does_ sound like a fate worse than death. Going through life, completely clueless as to who you really are? No fun. At least when you're dead, it's over, finished, and you don't have to hurt anymore. But maybe I should take hope from Larra and the others. _They_ remembered, even after Lusankya. Maybe I could, too. But then again . . . maybe not. I think they'd probably use a higher concentration of chemicals on me than they ever used on them; they know I'm feisty. But you know the two options there are in this situation: survive and be Vader's bounty hunting slave, or not make it out at all. I guess it all depends on whatever the Force has written up for my fate . . . if you believe in all that stuff. I think I might._

_If I_ do_ make it out of this and I can somehow remember, I'll be one lucky girl. But Vader always makes good on his promises—_especially_ the nasty ones—so I don't have a whole lot of hope. But . . . if I don't make it . . . If I don't, I want you to remember me. I want you to know who I was, what I've done, what I've gone through . . . I want you to be able to think of me whenever you hear the name of Fett. I want you to know that there was one of us with decency. I want you to know that I never intended for Boba to become what he did, but I do take some responsibility for it. The rest I willingly blame on genetics. And, most of all, I think I want you to know that I only hunted because that was the only thing I knew how to do. I would have gladly worked as a bartender instead of hunting bounties. I just want you to remember me._

_And if I don't make it out of this, brainwashed or no, then . . . then, Chev, wait for me on the other side._

_[Entry ends._


End file.
